i{ui5n»{?iiMi;HM?J'MiUi)5iin;)t»;'fi!iiin 




Book U^^ 



Copyright N^_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSnv 



The Companion Series. 



Under the Crown 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 
• 



SELECTIONS 
From The Youth's CompanioHo 



1909. 

PERRY MASON COMPANY, 

Boston, Mass. 






Copyright 1909. 
By PERRY MASON COMPANY, 

Boston, Mass. 



SEP 13.: 


2'A9 
AW9 



CONTENTS. 



Page 



THE DISCOVERY 
THE HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA 
RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACY . 
HUDSON'S DISCOVERIES 
THE FIRST YANKEES . 
THE FIRST HOME IN BOSTON 
STEVENSEN AND VAN HORNE 
MARQUETTE'S DISCOVERY . 

DIANTHE AND THE WITCH 
THE REGICIDES 
THE PURITAN PARSON 
THE WESLEYS IN GEORGIA 
COLONIAL MERRYMAKING . 
WASHINGTON AT BEL VOIR 
THE RESCUE 





James Parton 


3 




Max Owen 


9 




Ellen Mackubin 


17 




Max Owen 


33 




James Parton 


37 




Charles Adams 


43 




Martin M. Foss 


49 


Hezekiah Butterworth 


62 


Helen Kane 


67 


. Rebecca Harding Davis 


82 


. Manley H. Pike 


88 


Walter Leon Sawyer 


97 


James Parton 


104 


Mrs. Burton Harrison 


110 




. Ellen Mackubin 


116 



TWO HISTORIC LANDMARKS 
ELIZABETHS CHOICE . 
THE CATAMOUNT TAVERN 
THE MIDDLE PLANTATION . 
THE LITTLE REBEL; . 

POLLY CALLENDAr! ., 

WARREN'S LAST SPEECH . 



Clarence P. Elmery 131 

,M. E. M. Davis 136 

." Benson J. Lossing 150 

$enson J. Lossing 156 

. ! Nora Perry 165 

Margaret Fenderson 174 

James Parton 184 



THE FIRST COMERS. 




HE TOOK FORMAL POSSESSION. 



THE DISCOVERY. 

THE fascinating book which led to the dis- 
covery of America was the "Travels of Marco 
Polo," describing Asia about the year 1300. 
This deeply impressed the imaginative and 
religious mind of Columbus, and furnished him 
with an irresistible argument when he asked the 
assistance of Queen Isabella of Spain. 

When he spoke to King Ferdinand on the 
subject, no doubt he dwelt upon the spices, the 
rubies and the gold, and of the king, whose 
palaco roof was made of the precious metal; 
but when he spoke to the queen, a devoted and 
enthusiastic Catholic, we may be sure that he 
laid the greatest stress upon the story in Marco 
Polo, of the great emperor who had asked the 
Pope to send him a hundred Christian priests. 
We may be quite certain that this was the argu- 
ment which induced the queen to favor the 
expedition and offer her jewels to promote it. 

I do not doubt that Columbus himself fully 
appreciated the rubies and the gold described 
by Marco Polo. At the same time, the avowed 
object of the expedition was to convey a knowl- 
edge of the Christian religion to the " Prince 



THE DISCOVER¥. 



who is called the Grand Khan, who sent to 
Rome to entreat for doctors of our Holy Faith." 
This was the object stated by Columbus him- 
self in the first pages of his diary, which began 

thus : " In nomine D. N. 
Jesu Christi!" (In the 
name of our Lord Jesus 
Christ.) 

The expedition, there- 
fore, had a religious 
character, and Colum- 
bus regarded himself in 
the light, not of a mis- 
sionary indeed, but as 
the forerunner of mis- 
sionaries, and the pre- 
parer of the way for them. 
I wonder he did not have 
a priest with him. He did not, however, although 
he carried a notary to take possession of any 
lands he might discover, in the name of the 
King and Queen of Spain. 

The admiral offered a reward to whosoever 
should discover land. On the nineteenth day 
of the voyage a voice from one of the vessels, 
the Pinta, was heard crying, " Land, land, seiior! 
I claim my reward ! " 




SANTA MARIA. 



THE DISCOVERY. 5 

It was Martin Alonzo Pinzon who uttered the 
joyful cry, pointing at the same time toward the 
southwest at a low-lying bank of mist which 
had deceived him. 

Columbus, too, was deceived, and threw him- 
self upon his knees to offer thanks. All the 
crews of the two vessels in advance knelt also, 
while Pinzon, the sailors and the admiral united 
in chanting, "Gloria in Excelsis Deo." 

The anxious voyagers soon discovered their 
mistake, and their spirits sank within them. A 
second time they were cheered by signs of land. 
Besides a quantity of fresh weeds, they saw fish 
which they recognized to be of a kind that live 
near rocky ledges. They saw also a branch of 
thorn with berries on it, and picked up a reed, 
a board, and, most thrilling of all, a carved staff. 

Again the crew broke into joyous thanks- 
giving, and when the evening came the crews 
of all the ships sang with peculiar fervor the 
vesper hymn to the Virgin, an act which they 
never omitted during the whole voyage. 

When this hymn had been sung with feelings 
which we can but faintly imagine, the admiral 
stood forth and preached a brief but impressive 
thanksgiving sermon. The ofificial history of 
the expedition mentions that he dwelt particularly 



THE DISCOVERV» 



upon the circumstances that they had been 
continually cheered with fresh signs of land, 
which had increased in frequency and signifi- 
cance the farther they had gone, and the more 
they needed solace and encouragement. 

He thought it probable that they would reach 
land that very night, and promised whosoever 

should see it first a 
velvet doublet in ad- 
dition to the pension 
promised by their king 
and queen. 

That very evening, 
soon after twilight had 
darkened into the trop- 
ical night, Columbus 
himself saw a light 
glimmering afar off, 
and at two o clock 
the next morning a gun from the Pinta an- 
nounced that land had been descried. 

On Friday morning, October 12, 1492, Colum- 
bus saw before him, at a distance of a mile, 
a beautiful level island, covered with trees like 
an orchard and full of people, who were seen 
running out of the woods down to the shore, 
gazing at the ships in wonder. 




THE DISCOVERY. 



Soon the boats were manned, armed and made 
ready. The admiral, clad in scarlet and holding 
the royal standard of Spain, stepped into his own 
boat and led the way to the shore, followed by 
a boat from each of the other vessels, all showing 
a special banner emblazoned with a green cross 
and the initials of the Spanish sovereigns. 

The chronicle of the discovery informs us 
that as the voyagers approached the shores of 
the New World they were all charmed with 
the purity of the air and the beauty of the scene. 
As soon as Columbus landed he sank upon his 
knees and kissed the soil, shedding tears of joy. 

As the crews of the other boats came on 
shore, they all knelt beside and behind the 
admiral and joined him in a Latin prayer, which 
had been previously composed for the occasion, 
and which, by order of Ferdinand and Isabella, 
was adopted as the form of thanksgiving for 
all future jdiscoverers. It was used by Pizarro, 
Cortez and Balboa. 

" Lord God eternal and omnipotent! By thy 
sacred word thou didst create heaven, earth and 
sea. Blessed and glorified be thy name; thy 
majesty be praised ! Grant aid to thine humble 
servant, that thy sacred name may be known 
and lauded in this other part of the world." 



8 THE DISCOVERY. 

Having recited this prayer, Columbus rose 
to his feet, and all the company gathered round 
him. He drew his sword, and unfolded the 
royal standard to the breeze. Then, in the 
immediate presence of the captains of the vessels 
and the notary of the expedition, the sailors who 
had landed standing near, he took formal pos- 
session of the new found land and gave it the 
name of San Salvador. When this had been 
done, he required all present to take the oath of 
obedience to him as representing the sovereigns 
and wielding their power. 

During these ceremonies the great crowd of 
dusky natives stood transfixed with wonder. 
They were amaz.ed at the whiteness of the 
Spaniards, at their shining armor, their gor- 
geous banner, their splendid garments, and 
particularly the scarlet dress of their chief and 
his majestic demeanor. They little thought that 
the coming of these strange men meant misery, 
bondage, and swift extinction to their race. 

Columbus, on his part, never knew that the 
land he had found was no part of the regions 
described by Marco Polo. He had discovered 
a continent, and died without suspecting it. 

James Parton. 



THE HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA. 

THE efforts of the three great powers, Spain, 
France and England, to hold possession of 
the flowery peninsula mark very interesting 
events in the history of Florida. It must be 
admitted that Spain had the right of discovery, 
and proved her claim by actual though not con- 
tinuous possession for a longer time than both 
the other nations. 

It was on Palm Sunday, March 27, 15 12, that 
three small vessels under the command of the 
tough old Spanish explorer, Juan Ponce de Leon, 
arrived off the coast of the then unknown land. 
They had sailed three weeks before from Porto 
Rico, making a pleasant voyage with favorable 
winds, but no sooner had they come in sight of 
the strange coast than a storm arose, which kept 
them for several days beating up and down, 
unable to cast anchor. 

It was not till April 8th that Ponce de Leon 
went ashore and took possession of the land in 
the name of the King and Queen of Spain. He 
found a beautiful country filled with flowers and 
blossoming vines, but he did not find the hoped- 
for rocks and streams abounding in gold. 



10 THE HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA. 

He searched for the fabled Fountain of Youth, 
but of all the springs in the new land, which the 
grizzled old Ponce de Leon went about anxiously 
tasting, none made him younger by a single year. 

He learned from the Indians that the country 
was called Cautio. He renamed it Florida 
because he had first seen it on Pascua Florida, 
the Flowery Passover. In June he sailed away, 
a sadly disappointed man. 

Nine years later, in 152 1, he sailed once more 
for Florida, with the intention of exploring and 
subjugating it. Soon after landing^ he was 
attacked by a large number of Indians; many 
of his men were killed, and he was wounded by 
an arrow. He was carried back to his ship, and 
gave orders to make for Cuba, where he died 
a few days after his arrival. 

Florida was again invaded in 1528 by Narvaez, 
who expected to conquer another Mexico or 
Peru, but met disappointment and failure. 
With the same high hopes of finding gold, 
De Soto in 1539 began his explorations which 
ended with the discovery of the Mississippi and 
the burial of the ambitious commander of the 
romantic expedition in its waters. 

The explorations in 1523 from the Carolinas to 
Florida by Verrazano in the interest of the French 



THE HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA. 11 

government gave France a claim to this region, 
which they named New France, but in which no 
attempt at colonization was made for forty years. 

The French Huguenots, under their leader, 
Gaspard de Coligni, Admiral of France, fitted 
out the first expedition to found an empire in 
this so-called New France. 

On February i8, 1562, two ships, commanded 
by Capt. Jean Ribaut and Rene Laudonniere, 
distinguished French officers of marine, set sail 
from Dieppe. After a tempestuous voyage, 
they reached the coast of Florida and entered 
the St. John, which they called the River of 
May, from having discovered it on the first 
day of that month. 

As usual with the explorers of that day, they 
set up a column at the mouth of the river, 
engraved with the arms of France, in token that 
they took formal possession of the country 
in the name of the French sovereign. They 
built Fort Charles at Port Royal, and then 
returned to France. 

On April 22, 1564, Laudonniere returned to 
Florida, with three vessels containing emigrants, 
provisions and arms for the little colony, and 
built Fort Caroline, near the mouth of the St. 
John. The following year Ribaut also returned 



12 



THE HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA. 



to Florida, with a large fleet, to relieve Laudon- 
niere of his command. 

On August 14, 1565, the vessels arrived off 
the coast of Florida, and meeting some Indians 
there, he asked them where the new colony. Fort 

Caroline, was situated. 
They told him they had 
heard there were white 
men fifty miles toward 
the north. The vessels 
sailed until they reached 
the St. John, and taking 
two of the smallest ships, 
Captain Ribaut followed 
the stream until they 
reached Fort Caroline. 
Laudonniere met them at the bank. "At 
last, God be praised! " he cried. ''We thought 
you had abandoned us, and we are starving. 
Yes, actually starving. The Indians will not 
bring us food, and we were too few to venture 
in those hostile woods to seek it. I will return 
to France immediately. I can bear a great deal, 
but the limit has been reached." 

''But," asked Captain Ribaut, "we found the 
Indians friendly and obliging when we first 
came. Why will they not now bring provisions?" 




MEETING SOME INDIANS THERE. 



THE HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA. 13 

Laudonniere shrugged his shoulders. *'Ah, 
well, you see, our men have made enemies; 
they were hard to control. They made forays, 
brought prisoners to the fort, and, to speak 
frankly, they have acted like fools, and worse. 
If you had not come when you did, you would 
not have found us here, and our scalps would 
have decorated the wigwams." 

Captain Ribaut shook his head. He knew 
well the danger of awakening the hostility of 
the savages. " It is bad," he said, "for we shall 
have two enemies. Philip of Spain is sending 
out a fleet under Don Pedro Menendez de 
Aviles, to drive us from Florida if he can. We 
are ordered to resist him to the death." 

Menendez reached the coast of Florida, his 
fieet badly storm-beaten. Ribaut demanded his 
business. He was told that war was declared 
between Spain and France, and that they were 
there as enemies. 

The French considered it more prudent to 
retreat a short distance, until their preparations 
could be made, and the Spaniards pursued them 
only to the mouth of the river they called 
Dauphin. Jean Ribaut, returning to Fort 
Caroline, took on board nearly all the able-bodied 
men, much against the will of Laudonniere, 



14 THE HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA. 

who was left with invalids, women, and a small 
number of troops. Ribaut intended to attack 
the Spaniards, and in one decisive engagement 
drive them from Florida. 

But Menendez, who had gained a foothold, 
and commenced building Fort Marion, had his 
spies among the Indians, and knew that Captain 
Ribaut had taken all the available forces from 
Fort Caroline. Taking Indian guides, with a 
strong force he made his way through marsh 
and morass, and in the midst of a terrible storm 
swooped down on the fort, and took it after a 
short resistance. 

A survivor wrote, "I escaped, God knows 
how, and ran to the thick woods. I stopped at 
some little distance, and hiding behind the trees, 
looked down at the inner court of the fort where 
the massacre was going on. It was so horrible 
that I covered my eyes with my hands, and ran 
on headlong, knowing not and caring not where 
I was going, if I could only get away from that 
spot. Suddenly in front of me I heard groans 
and cries, and came upon some of our men who 
had also escaped. We knelt down and prayed 
God to help us. 

"We made for the seacoast, as well as we 
could shape our course. We came to rivers, 



THE HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA. 



15 



which we crossed, sometimes by swimming, 
sometimes by the aid of fallen trees. At last, 
when exhausted, and ready to lie down and die, 
we came to a vast sea-marsh, and one of our 
men, climbing a high tree, saw not only the sea, 
but the vessel of 
Captain Maillard, 
which he signaled, 
and they sent boats 
after us. 

*' More dead than 
alive, we were taken 
on board, and there 
we found the Sieur 
Laudonniere, who had also escaped. Soon 
the Pearl sailed up to us, and Capt. Jean Ribaut 
told how his vessels had been dispersed and 
wrecked by the hurricane, during which the 
fort had been taken. But he said he would 
never leave the coast while there was a chance 
of any of our men escaping; that it was his 
duty to stay and give them aid. But Captain 
Maillard sailed for France, taking us with him." 

Captain Ribaut, who would not desert his 
post of duty, was again tempest-tossed, and his 
remaining vessels were driven ashore. The 




French wandered about, half 



starving, 



and 



16 THE HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA. 

knowing well that the Indians, whom the sol- 
diers at the fort had angered, would take the 
first chance to revenge themselves. 

A body of Spaniards came upon them. They 
were too weak to resist, and gave up their arms 
upon a solemn promise from Vallemande, the 
commanding ofificer, that they should be treated 
as prisoners of war. 

Ribaut, honorable and truthful himself, believed 
the Spaniard. They were marched on, and as 
he was in front, he did not see that his thirty 
men had their hands tied behind their backs. 

As they entered the fort, the massacre began. 
Captain Ribaut himself was first to fall ; then 
the others were stricken down, one by one. In 
all, nine hundred Huguenots were murdered 
on the banks of the St. John. 

There have been few such scenes in American 
history, and the tragedy has been but little 
noted. The lovely Floridian river retains no 
token of this massacre. While we remember 
the bloodshed of that fatal day, we do not forget 
the heroic self-sacrifice of brave Jean Ribaut, 
who gave up his life upon the bare chance of 
saving some fugitive from a cruel death. 

Max Owen. 



RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACY. 

ON a blustering winter morning in 1608 
Edmund Culpepper paced to and fro before 
the gateway of the stockade surrounding a 
huddle of cabins which called itself *'The Vir- 
ginia Company's Colony of Jamestown." 

With his musket under his arm he awaited 
the relief, who would send him to a breakfast 
for which he was none the less hungry because he 
feared this morning's rations would be scantier 
than his scanty supper of corn-meal porridge. 

He did not worry about warlike intruders, for 
only last week Powhatan, who ruled all the 
Virginia Indians, had smoked a "peace-pipe" 
with John Smith, who, by energy and prudence, 
had become the admitted leader of the colony. 

In that winter of 1608 the story was not two 
months old of how Powhatan's dearest child 
had risked her own life to save Smith, then a 
prisoner in her father's tent, and how Smith's 
wisdom and courage had so won upon the 
Indian king that he was permitted to return to 
the colony with gifts of food and tobacco, and 
promises of friendship. 



18 RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACY. 



All winter this friendship had proved the 
single hopeful element in the condition of the 
despondent, half-starved English, among whom 
hardly forty survived from three times that 
number of '* gentlemen adventurers." 

Discontent was held in check only by the new 
governor's energy and his dauntless assurances 
that Newport, their first leader, would presently 
return from England with reenforcements and 
provisions for beginning an era of prosperity. 

Culpepper believed in Smith's assurances as 
heartily as the captain himself. "No sluggard 
he!" the lad thought, admiringly, as Smith 
appeared on the rampart. " Tis a marvel he 
keeps his temper with those drones who would 
rather idle in their chimney-corners, groaning 
that Newport hath forsaken us, than work upon 
the quarters we promised to have ready before 
the Constant brings us a crowd of newcomers!" 

Then the thrill of hero-worship vanished 
before a thrill of hunger quite as keen ! " Petti- 
place, at last! " he exclaimed aloud, as the relief 
approached. "Are the bacon and eggs yet 
more excellent than their wont, Master Petti- 
place, that you have lingered with them?" 

"Thou wilt need to draw thy belt a hole 
closer, for the porridge is scantier than ever! 



RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACy. 19 

But worse than short rations, there's like to be 
trouble with Ratcliffe and his faction." 

" Has anything happened?" 

''This! When Captain Smith bade Ratcliffe 
take the working shift at once to the quarters 
building for Newport's arrival, Ratcliffe answered 
sullenly that there need be no haste to prepare 
for a most doubtful event. To which Smith 
exclaimed that Ratcliffe's duty was not to ques- 
tion, but to obey the orders of his superiors; 
and Ratcliffe muttered that a superior whom his 
own vote had helped to make could be easily 
unmade. Whereupon Smith, with his hand on 
his sword, demanded him to repeat that mutter- 
ing aloud, which Ratcliffe shirked, smiling falsely. 

'* * Empty stomachs and short tempers go ever 
together,' he declared. ' Get your Indian friends 
to fill the one, and I promise to sweeten the 
other.' Then Smith cried out that the English 
were wont to earn their meat, not beg it, and 
that he feared Master Ratcliffe must be sickening 
of the fever thus to fail in spirit. So he left us, 
some ashamed of their discontent, but many 
gathering about Ratcliffe before I finished scra- 
ping my porringer." 

Edmund looked wistfully toward the forest 
as Pettiplace paused. Then he shouted a 



20 



RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACY. 



"view-halloo" which brought the homesick ad- 
venturers rushing from the common - house, 
while Smith himself ran down from the rampart. 

"Hast gone mad?" 
Smith began. 

But Edmund confront- 
ed him unabashed. 
"Doth not a view-halloo 
announce the sight of 
the game?" he asked, 
triumphantly. "Andean 
your excellency deny 
that a deer cometh this 
way as fast as four legs 
not its own can bring it ?" 
A laugh, ending in a 
shout of welcome, broke 
from every throat in the 
hungry crowd, while 
Smith stepped forward 
briskly. An Indian girl about thirteen years 
old emerged from the forest, followed by two 
tall Indian youths, carrying a huge buck, slung 
between them. 

"Uncover, gentlemen!" Smith commanded. 
Then he bent to kiss the brown hand Pocahontas 
held out to him. "My princess hath ever a 




CAPT. JOHN SMITH. 



RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACY. 21 

new gift for her slave!" he exclaimed, in fash- 
ionable court language, which for motives both 
chivalrous and politic, he adopted toward this 
child of the Indian king. 

*'Nay, not my slave, but my friend," Poca- 
hontas answered, in the careful English she was 
learning. "You have told me that in England 
a princess maketh friends of the great warriors, 
and I love the English ways." 

"For which love of yours we English are 
devoutly thankful," Smith replied, gravely, and 
standing aside, permitted the greetings, half- 
ceremonious, half-joking, with which the others 
gathered about this little Indian maid. 

Not until Edmund returned did Smith inter- 
rupt Pocahontas's pleasure in the gay flattery. 
"The princess bids you dine with her at noon 
in the common-house ! " Smith exclaimed, at 
last. " Until then, Master Ratcliffe will take 
his party to work on the new quarters, and 
Master Porter will lead his company to repair 
the break in the fort rampart." 

"What will Captain Smith do?" 

The taunting voice was clearly audible, though 
nobody seemed to have spoken. 

"Captain Smith will oversee both works, as 
suits the duty of the governor of this colony 



22 RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACY. 

in the absence of Captain Newport," Smith 
answered, with a flashing glance which vainly 
sought the owner of the voice. 

Everybody dispersed without further question, 
and Smith was presently alone with Edmund 
and Pocahontas. ''Ned, thou shalt lead our 
princess to the sunny path between the river 
and the willows, where the wind bloweth 
not!" he exclaimed, gaily. "And there, young 
coxcomb, thou shalt amuse her with stories of 
court pageants and Queen Anne's finery." 

"Will you not tell me stories, too?" she 
begged, with her hand still lingering in his clasp. 

"I am a rough soldier, with no such pretty 
tales for the telling, and with much pressing 
business," he said, gendy. "Yet will I follow 
later, for that reading lesson we have missed 
these eight days." 

" My Uncle Opecanchanough persuaded my 
father that you taught me magic from the book 
about your God. They forbade me to come 
here ; but to-day they sent me freely." 

Smith, who carried his Bible wherever he 
carried his sword, had begun the instruction of 
Pocahontas in Christianity, afterward completed 
by her English husband. But her words brought 
more immediate anxiety than her conversion. 



RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACY. 



23 



COPYRIGH 



905, JAMESTOWN OFFICIAL PHOTO CO. 



*'Thy Uncle Opecanchanough is sure to mean 
unfriendliness to us English, whether he urgeth 
thy father to let thee come hither or to restrain 
thee," he said, thoughtfully ; and waving his hand 
in farewell, he turned 
through the gateway. 

The two scrambled 
down the steep bank 
to a narrow, sandy 
path beside the river. 

" It is not of thy 
king's court I would 
hear," Pocahontas 
smiled. "Last week 
thou didst tell me thy 
sisters were little 
maids like me." 

*' Nan is of thine 
age, and a pretty little 
minx, who can dance 
a minuet — " 

" I can dance, too," 




TOWER OF THE lAMESTOWN CHURCH. 



Pocahontas broke in. " And I also am beautiful." 
Edmund laughed yet more heartily. "Nan 
calls herself fair, I doubt not, but she would 
never say so, even to her dearest friend." 

"Why should she not say so if it be the truth ? " 



24 RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACY. 

" My lady mother hath taught her that a maid 
must leave to others the praise of her beauty." 

*'Then I will never call myself beautiful again. 
Tell me something more wherein I am unlike thy 
sisters, for I desire to be as English as they are." 

''That thou couldst not be, nor must thou 
desire it," he protested. "Nan turns faint for 
a cut finger, and though Bess helps my mother 
visit the sick, she would never dare risk her life 
to save a stranger, as thou didst, or to walk 
through miles of snow-drift to feed starving men, 
as thou hast done many times this winter." 

''Hush!" whispered Pocahontas. The soft- 
ness his praise had brought to her eyes vanished 
as she grasped his arm. "One of my people 
cometh; I hear a moccasin tread." 

Screened by the drooping branches of huge 
willows, they recognized the stern features of 
Opecanchanough, Powhatan's brother, who had 
opposed the sparing of Smith's life, and was 
ever, as Smith had just declared, the persistent 
enemy of the English settlers. 

The next moment the boy's heart sank. For, 
creeping as if he feared a spying gaze at each 
step, Ratcliffe drew near, and Opecanchanough 
received him in a manner which showed the 
meeting to be prearranged. 



RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACY. 25 

The Indian spoke first in his own language, 
loudly enough to reach the listeners; but 
Edmund, who understood only a few words, 
waited impatiently to gather his meaning from 
Ratcliffe's reply, as that worthy had publicly 
scorned Smith's advice that the colonists should 
learn the speech of their neighbors. 

The reply, however, was uttered in fairly 
fluent Indian, and the two or three English 
phrases used sent the color from the boy's 
cheeks. With clenched fists he listened motion- 
less. Only his troubled eyes left Ratcliffe's 
cringing smiles and Opecanchanough's stolid 
calm for the dark face of Pocahontas. 

"What evil do they mean us?" Edmund 
murmured, as, each in his own direction, Indian 
and Englishman passed out of sight. 

"Quiet!" she whispered. "My uncle hath 
the ears of a squirrel." Nor would she heed his 
mute impatience for several minutes. 

"They spoke often the name of the Good 
Speed, your single ship at anchor yonder," she 
said, at last. " Did not that tell — " 

" Doth Ratcliffe mean to barter our only ship 
to your people?" 

"Nay, that would harm himself as much as it 
would harm his countrymen," she answered. 



26 RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACY. 

"Come ! We must run. We must find Captain 
Smith. This east wind may change at any 
moment ; and my uncle told Ratcliffe that stores 
of corn-meal and tobacco await the Good Speed 
at the point where the river reacheth the sea — " 

*' But Ratcliffe?" Edmund interrupted, as 
they ran toward the settlement. 

" Ratcliffe promised that himself, Wingfield, 
and twenty more would board the Good Speed 
the next night the west wind bloweth, overpower 
the few sailors who guard it, and after taking 
up the stores my uncle hath provided, sail forth 
for England, leaving Captain Smith and a dozen 
loyal to him in Jamestown." 

" To be butchered whenever Opecanchanough 
and his tribe pleaseth!" Edmund broke out, 
furiously, wrenching his hand from her hold. 

"You have enough English traitors to make 
an end of the honest men among you ! " she cried. 
Then her eyes softened. "Poor Ned ! It is bitter 
to be betrayed. I, too, dread my uncle's schemes. 
For in the women's lodge they whisper that 
he meaneth to be king when Powhatan dieth, 
instead of my little brother Nantauquas, and 
that he will destroy all whom Powhatan loved." 

Hastening forward, they saw John Smith 
striding toward them. Quickly, in her own 



RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACY. 27 

language, Pocahontas told him the plot. He 
kissed her hand gravely when she paused. 

''Without thee, princess, not an Englishman 
would be left alive in Virginia to meet Newport ! 
But thou shalt see John Smith outwit the 
enemies of this colony. They cannot sail until 
this east wind changes, but we can balk them 
at once ; only my princess must help me again." 

An hour later the colonists were summoned 
by a merry blowing of horns to the common- 
house, whence came an odor of roast venison. 

Except the sentries on the fort whom Smith 
chose from his devoted friends, all were promptly 
seated before the rough tables, where they were 
bountifully served with meat and corn bread. 

At the upper end of one table Smith placed 
Pocahontas on his right; and hungry as Edmund 
was, he looked at them oftener than at his plate. 
But neither man nor maid showed interest in 
anything beyond their dinner. 

When the meal ended. Captain Smith arose. 

"This is the banquet of the Princess Poca- 
hontas, who desireth to bestow yet another 
pleasure upon us in proof of her friendship and 
the king her father's good-will," he said, smiling. 
" She hath comforted our bodies. She will now 
delight our spirits. She will dance for us." 



RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACY. 29 

Pocahontas smiled gravely, and began to 
dance, while the two Indian serving lads who 
had come with her began a harsh chant, which 
quickened gradually, and to which her steps 
kept pace. It was then that Edmund's heart 
fluttered as one and another of Smith's trustiest 
friends noiselessly left the room without disturb- 
ing the lazy enjoyment of their companions, 
except Ratcliffe, who once half-rose, but meeting 
Smith's questioning gaze, sat down again. 

With a wild grace learned of deer or panther, 
or other forest creatures, Pocahontas whirled 
and bounded, swiftly, smoothly, vehemently, 
until the musicians' chant grew breathless, and 
her delicate face was pinched with exhaustion. 
Yet she did not falter until the report of a 
distant musket rang sharply. Then she dropped 
upon a bench, and every man sprang to his feet. 

"Newport!" was the general cry, although 
Ratcliffe and Wingfield made for the door. 
Smith stood smiling triumphandy. " Culpepper 
and Pettiplace, allow none of these gentlemen 
to leave this house!" he commanded. "That 
musket was not fired by Newport's orders, but 
by mine. It means not that the ship Co7istant 
hath arrived, but that the ship Good Speed will 
not sail by the next west wind. It means that 



30 RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACY. 

however John Smith and those who trust him 
may die, it will not be like starved rats in a trap 
set by an Indian villain and an English traitor! 
Master Ratcliffe, I demand your sword, in the 
name of King James and the Virginia Company." 

Instantly the room was in tumult. Some 
rallied wnth bared weapons about Ratcliffe, but 
most shouted self-exculpation or clamored for 
further explanation. Smith, sturdy and erect, 
dominated the tumult. 

"That is more seemly, gentlemen!" he 
exclaimed, when other voices quieted so that 
his could be heard. "A plot hath been discov- 
ered whereby a portion of this company, led by 
Master Ratcliffe, agreed to seize the colony's 
remaining ship, and with the next west wind 
sail for England, leaving the few of us who 
should keep our vow of abiding Newport's 
return to be massacred by our Indian enemies. 
Thanks be to God and the Princess Pocahontas, 
word came to rne of this plot in season to baffle 
it. The Good Speed is now garrisoned by ten 
men, who have directed its two culverins upon 
this town, and who will assuredly destroy any 
rowboat approaching the ship without my signal. 
You will do well, gendemen, to be ruled peace- 
fully in this matter by me." 



RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACY. 31 

The Jamestown colonists had faced alternatives 
of life and death so often that they came promptly 
to a decision. Swords were sheathed, hats 
were doffed, and not a voice was lifted in protest, 
while Ratcliffe sullenly surrendered his weapon 
to Pettiplace, hating his own party just then 
more even than he hated Smith, who was 
leading Pocahontas in stately fashion through 
the dividing crowd, out upon the empty street. 

There they halted, and Smith glanced up at 
the fast-scudding clouds. "See, child! Thou 
wast barely in time, for the wind hath left the 
east. It will blow from the west to-night." 

"Think you, captain, those turncoats will stay 
quiet?" asked Edmund, who had followed 
anxiously from the common-house. 

Smith smiled exultantly. "The Good Speed's 
culverins, pointed this way by my command, 
will control some. The shame honest men feel 
when found in the society of rogues will control 
others. And we may safely await Newport, 
whom may God send us soon ! " 

He turned to Pocahontas. " Meanwhile our 
princess must hasten homeward, or she will not 
be permitted to come to us again." 

"I shall come no more, whether I haste or 
tarry," she answered. "My father bade me be 



32 RATCLIFFE'S CONSPIRACY. 

in the woman's lodge by noon, and he forgives 
not disobedience." 

"If you fear his wrath, stay with us!" Smith 
exclaimed. "There are enough loyal English- 
men in Jamestown to protect their benefactress." 

"Nay, my father will not hurt me, not even 
though Opecanchanough persuade him that I 
love the strangers better than mine own people." 

She paused abruptly, waving her hand toward 
the river. "What is that — like a white cloud 
above the seaward point?" she cried. 

Smith's glance and Edmund's followed hers — 
and a great shout broke from them. 

"A ship ! Newport's ship ! God be thanked, 
those sails are English cut!" 

For an instant every sense of man and boy 
was absorbed in watching the fuller appearing 
of the sails, which brought safety to the colony. 

When they remembered Pocahontas, her slight 
figure was swiftly vanishing into the forest. 

Nor did she return to Jamestown until two 
years later, when she was brought there a pris- 
oner, but tenderly welcomed, to find, as she 
deserved, the love and happiness of her life. 

Ellen Mackubin. 



HUDSON'S DISCOVERIES. 

nPHE name of Hudson is connected with the 
■* largest river in New York; it belongs also 
to the bay and strait of the British possessions. 
The river and the bay are far apart, and yet the 
extent of the coast between them gives us a 
limited idea of how much of the globe Hudson 
explored. The country along the Hudson River 
belonged to the Dutch ; that about Hudson 
Bay was, from the first, English. 

Hudson's first voyage, of which he left a 
journal, was undertaken, he tells us, at the 
charge of "certain worshipfull Merchants of 
London," in 1607. Its purpose was to discover 
a passage by the north pole to Japan and China. 

The second expedition was made from London, 
in 1608, but this time Hudson gave his attention 
particularly to the passage by the northeast, 
advancing as far as Nova Zembla. 

Early in January, 1609, Hudson entered into 
an agreement with the Dutch East India Com- 
pany, by which he agreed to search for a passage 
to the north of Nova Zembla. 

On April 4, 1609, he set sail from Amsterdam. 



34 HUDSON'S DISCOVERIES. 

His vessel was the Half Moon, a yacht of about 
eighty tons' burden, and manned by a motley 
crew of Dutch and English. He passed the 
North Cape on May 5th, and in the course of a 
few days came to the edge of the ice which 
encompassed Nova Zembla. 

Although the orders given to Hudson required 
that he should search for a passage only by way 
of the northeast, yet on May 14th, with the 
consent of his officers and men, he shaped his 
course toward the coast of America. On July 
1 2th he first saw the American shores, and on 
the 1 8th he anchored in a safe harbor, probably 
Penobscot Bay, on the coast of Maine. 

From this point he sailed southward until he 
was opposite the entrance to James River, where 
the English had settled two years before. Sat- 
isfied that there was no passage through the 
continent south of that point, he turned toward 
the north, and examined the coast with care. 

On August 28th he discovered Delaware Bay, 
and a few days later, September 3d, he anchored 
inside of Sandy Hook. The discovery of the 
North River followed, and Hudson sailed up this 
river, between the Palisades and the beautiful 
banks of forest-clad hills, seeing occasional 
fields of corn and Indian wigwams. 



HUDSON'S DISCOVERIES. 



35 



At first the Indians looked on the Half Moon 
with terror, but seeing human beings on board, 
they approached in their canoes, and soon were 
engaged in a friendly barter of food and furs 
for knives, axes, 
cloth and shoes. 
It was not long 
before a quarrel 
arose between the 
natives and the 
sailors in which 
one of Hudson's 
men was killed. 

Hudson con- 
tinued his explor- 
ation, sailing up 
the river as far as 
the place where 
Albany now stands. There he found the chan- 
nel contracting, instead of widening out into the 
great western ocean, as he had hoped. 

His small boats returned from further search, 
and reported that it was only an inland river. 
So back went Hudson, past the Palisades and 
the narrow island that is now covered by the 
great city, back to Holland, and gave to the 
Dutch a claim to all the region about the newly 




HALF -MOON. 



36 HUDSON'S DISCOVERIES. 

discovered river. They named the country 
New Netherlands, and engaged in profitable 
trade for furs with the Indians. They located 
the headquarters of their trading company on 
Manhattan Island, which they later bought for 
twenty-four dollars, and on which there grew 
up an enterprising colony which they called 
New Amsterdam. 

In April, 1610, Hudson sailed under English 
auspices in search of a northeast passage. On 
this voyage he discovered the strait and the 
bay which have since borne his name. The 
following winter he spent on the shores of 
Hudson Bay. The suffering from the want 
of food was great, and his crew in the spring 
showed a natural impatience of longer delay. 
In a mutinous outbreak they put their com- 
mander, with his son and several sick sailors, 
into a frail boat; and on Midsummer day, 
161 1, they cut him adrift in the midst of the 
arctic waters. No further trace of the great 
navigator was ever found. 

Max Owen. 



THE FIRST YANKEES. 

ON a morning in April, 1621, all the Yankees 
in the world were gathered upon a hill, 
watching a small vessel as she stood out to sea, 
and slowly faded into the eastern horizon. 

The little ship was the Mayflower, going 
home without a cargo, to the sore disappoint- 
ment of the merchants who had sent her across 
the sea. The company watching her was the 
Plymouth Colony, left by her on a desolate shore 
to live, if they could ; to die, if they must. 

It seems absurd to call these people Pilgrim 
Fathers, this wan and sickly band of twenty 
men, eight women, and twenty-three children, 
including two babies still in their mothers' arms. 

I call them Yankees, because, in getting out 
of their difificulties, they showed all the charac- 
teristic Yankee traits. 

Their ship was gone. The nearest white 
settlement was on the James River in Virginia. 
They owed a great deal of money to merchants 
in England. They did not own the barren land 
on which their cabins were built. They did not 
possess a horse, an ox, a cow, or a pig, and 
what provisions they had left were bad or stale. 



38 THE FIRST YANKEES. 

During the winter nearly half their number 
had died from exposure and bad food, and on 
this April day of the Mayflower s sailing there 
was scarcely one among them who had recovered 
the full measure of his strength. Their capital 
consisted of a supply of farming tools, a quantity 
of Engrlish seeds, and ten bushels of Indian corn 
which they had found hidden in the earth. 

In all probability not a man among them had 
ever before seen an ear of Indian corn, and had 
not the least idea of the mode of cultivating it. 
If they had put it into the ground as they did 
their peas and other English seeds, they would 
have had no harvest, as the soil there is not 
much better than the sand of Cape Cod. 

It was an Indian who gave them the informa- 
tion, without which they must have perished. 
There were no Indians in their immediate neigh- 
borhood ; but owing to their skilful management 
and dignified urbanity, they had completely won 
the affections of their Indian visitors, one of 
whom, named Squanto, a knowing, handy fellow, 
had been born and reared on that very spot. 

He knew all the ledges along the coast where 
codfish and haddock congregate, the places 
where lobsters abound, and where clams could 
be abundantly dug. He knew the value of 



THE FIRST YANKEES. 39 

beaver skins and otter skins. Above all, he 
knew the art and mystery of raising Indian 
corn in that sandy soil. He told them how to 
plant the corn in hills and rows, and showed 
them the Indian way of fertilizing the sand. 

There is a rapid stream of fresh water empty- 
ing into Plymouth harbor, into which every 



^S 


-_ 






^^SftiLi ' 




^- 


-- 1 .- 


^^m 


^Ipr, ^« 


^Hi 






ttL^ 


11 


1 

1 



WATCHING A S.MALL VESSEL. 



spring prodigious numbers of small, fat fish 
enter from the ocean to deposit their eggs. Two 
or three of these fish, which are called alewives, 
put into each hill of corn, gave a luxuriant crop. 
Squanto showed them the Indian mode of 
catching these fish, and assisted them to plant 
twenty acres with their precious store of seed. 



40 THE FIRST YANKEES. 

By the end of the planting season they had a 
little farm of twenty-six acres all nicely planted 
— six acres of English barley and peas, and 
twenty acres of maize. 

In catching these precious fish the Pilgrims 
very soon showed that they were genuine 
Yankees. They converted that little river into 
a Yankee fish-trap, which would have been 
worthy of a patent if the patent- office had then 
been ready for business. 

They observed that the fish come in with the 
tide, deposit their spawn, and go out with the 
tide. By constructing two small dams and some 
simple trap-doors, they fixed their river in such a 
way that ten or fifteen thousand fish could get in 
very easily ; but, on the turn of the tide, the trap- 
doors shut, the water escaped without difficulty, 
but the poor fish were left high and dry, to be 
raked and heaped upon the bank all ready for 
use. Every man was permitted to carry off a 
quantity proportioned to the land he cultivated. 

The first harvest came round. The peas were 
a perfect failure, probably because they were 
planted too late. The sun parched and killed 
the blossoms, and the crop was not worth gath- 
ering. The barley was pretty good, or, as they 
said, "indifferent good." But the Indian corn 



THE FIRST YANKEES. 



41 



yielded such a bountiful increase that each per- 
son could be allowed about a peck of meal a 
week. Seven good houses had been built for 
dwellings, and four more for storage. 

During that autumn food was superabundant, 
and they had a truly glorious Thanksgiving 
feast, which lasted three days, and entertained the 
chief Massasoit and 
ninety of his people. 

Wild fowl w^ere 
so abundant at that 
season that four 
men in one day 
killed nearly enough 
to supply the col- 
ony for a week. 
Excellent health 
prevailed. They 
were well sheltered from the inclemency of the 
weather ; bright fires were burning ; and they wrote 
home such cheering accounts that newcomers 
arrived faster than food could be grown for them. 

During the two summers following they had 
long periods of partial famine. The second 
summer they planted nearly sixty acres with 
corn, but the crop was scanty, partly through 
the weakness of the men from scarcity of food. 




SHELLING INDIAN CORN. 



42 THE FIRST YANKEES. 

The third summer the crop of corn was so 
abundant that they had some to sell, and from 
that time to the present all good Yankees have 
had enough to eat. In 1624, when they imported 
cattle, the colony consisted of one hundred and 
eighty people, who lived in thirty-two cabins. 

They now began to sell corn to the fishermen 
along the coast; they let the Indians know that 
they had a good bushel of corn ready for every 
beaver-skin that might be brought in. Every 
vessel that went home to England carried beaver- 
skins packed in hogsheads, which yielded a 
surprising profit. 

In twenty-one years after their first arrival, the 
Plymouth Yankees had paid all their English debt, 
acquired a right to their lands, and were in all 
respects an independent, prosperous community. 

The original Yankees were successful in busi- 
ness, because they were brave, just, intelligent 
and humane. Every step of their genuine 
progress can be traced to their superior qualities 
as human beings. They had the courage to 
try hard things ; they used their minds in doing 
them, and they took just care of the rights and 
feelings of those who helped them. 

James Parton. 



THE FIRST HOME IN BOSTON. 

THERE is a certain atmosphere of mystery 
about the first homemaker of Boston. He 
was a pale, rather tall, spare young man, of 
English birth, always dressed in a suit of worn 
black, and his name was William Blackstone, or 
Blaxton. He had been a student at Cambridge 
University, and had intended to become an 
Episcopal clergyman. He was a naturalist by 
instinct, addicted to experiments in mechanics, 
and withal a remarkably fearless soul. But we 
do not certainly know for what reason he came 
to America to live alone here, nor what resources 
he brought with him. Some have conjectured 
that his was a case of unrequited affection, 
while we have his own statement that disagree- 
ments with the bishops of the Church of England 
were at least partly the cause of his seclusion in 
New England. 

It has been supposed that he came in the 
ship with Robert Gorges. It is known that he 
arrived in America as early as 1623, and that 
by 1626, perhaps a year earlier, he was estab- 
lished in Shawmut with his books and his goods ; 



44 THE FIRST HOME IN BOSTON. 

and that he cleared land for a garden and orchard 
just below the present Louisburg Square. 

There was then a fine, copious spring of 
water hereabouts. Blackstone's little farm is 
believed to have been a little below it, nearer 
the Charles River, and possibly extending round 
to the present Common. 

William Blackstone had been living there 
alone at his little place on the side of the hill 
for at least four years when Winthrop and his 
company of Puritans came, long enough to have 
a garden in a good state of cultivation and fruit- 
trees near to bearing. 

It would seem that he must have had assist- 
ance from the Indians to uproot the large stumps 
from his clearing. These he placed upright, 
joined closely together, for a fence round his 
garden and house, to keep out bears, deer and 
wolves, the first stump fence in New England. 

It was a wild, lonely little home, but quiet 
and peaceful, and far remote from that busy 
world which had somehow so deeply wounded 
the heart of William Blackstone. He prized its 
quiet; he loved its solitude; he designed to live 
and die here alone, cultivating his little plantation 
in the wilderness. 

Then one day in July, 1630, the young recluse, 




WILL POINT OUT A BETTER LOCATION. 



46 THE FIRST HOME IN BOSTON. 

wandering about over his hill, heard the sounds 
of shouting and the crash of falling trees. On 
ascending to the top of the hill, he saw a ship 
at anchor off what is now Charlestown. Boat- 
loads of people were disembarking, axmen were 
at work on shore, fires were kindled, and tempo- 
rary sheds, too, were in process of erection. 

It was John Winthrop and his colony of 
Puritans, landing at Charlestown, which they 
had chosen as the site of their future city. 

Very often throughout that summer of 1630 
Blackstone, from his hilltop, marked the labors 
of the new settlers. With his longer experience 
of the locality he saw that they had made a 
mistake. There was no good water over there ; 
the situation was low and unhealthy. 

His elevated, healthier Shawmut, with its fine 
springs of water, was by far the better site 
for a settlement. Yet why should he give up 
his now productive farm and garden to the 
newcomers ? His quiet life would be at an end ; 
they would throng the place and overrun it. 

This lonely young reader of books was not 
lacking in hospitality nor deficient in humane 
instincts ; and day by day, as he ascended 
the hill to watch the progress of the settlers, 
his heart went out to them, all the more when he 



THE FIRST HOME IN BOSTON. 47 

understood that numbers of them were dying and 
that there was much lamentation and mourning. 

Hence it came about that one morning in 
August, as Governor Winthrop was walking in 
anxious converse with Mr. Isaac Johnson, the 
pair took heed of an Indian canoe coming down 
the Charles River toward their landing-place. 

It was not an Indian, however, who stepped 
ashore, but a tall, spare 3'oung white man in 
a worn suit of black, who addressed them most 
courteously, gave them the name of William 
Blackstone, and informed them that he lived 
at Trimountain, on the other side of the bay. 

'' I have seen, good sirs," quoth he, " that you 
have much sickness in your company. The site 
which you have chosen is unhealthy and the 
waters foul. If you may desire to go with me 
across the bay yonder, I will point out to you a 
better location, one which you are welcome to 
share with me." 

Governor Winthrop invited the young stranger 
to accompany him to his house, and there ques- 
tioned him at great length. 

The next day the governor, with Sir Richard 
Saltonstall and four other of the settlers, crossed 
over to Shawmut, to return Blackstone's visit 
and inspect the locality. The removal of the 



48 THE FIRST HOME IN BOSTON. 

colony from Charlestown followed in due course 
a few days later. 

Our young hermit settler may therefore be 
said to have done the first honors of future 
Boston ; for it is to this hospitable invitation to 
share his home and lands with him that Boston 
owes its settlement by the Puritans. 

Four years after Winthrop and his company 
of Puritans had come to Shawmut by Black- 
stone's invitation, and settled there, the first 
settler sold them his land, except a garden-plot 
of six acres, for the sum of thirty pounds, or 
about a hundred and fifty dollars. 

This tract of real estate is now worth at least 
fifty millions of dollars — a striking commentary 
on the change in values which has taken place 
since 1634. 

Charles Adams. 



STEVENSEN AND VAN HORNE. 

'T^HE canoe trip which Diedrich Stevensen 
-*■ and Jan Van Home took in May of 1653 
was ahvays regarded b}' them as the first voyage 
of the great fleet which in later years was known 
in all the important ports of the world. 

It was only Jan's foolhardy desire to run Hell 
Gate in a canoe, Jan's desire and Diedrich's 
assent against the dictates of his sounder judg- 
ment, that led to the unexpected adventure. 

As they rounded the point which makes the 
westerly end of Flushing Bay, there, lying at 
anchor, was a Dutch bark, its ornamented bow 
and stern towering high above the waist. 

They both saw that the Indians in canoes 
about the ship and the bustle on board meant 
but one thing — smuggling. The boys wished 
to slip away, but they were so close now that 
even as they turned their canoe, a boat came 
from under the stern and pulled toward them. 
They drove their canoe toward the baixk, strain- 
ing every muscle to escape. 

But there were four men in the boat, so that 



50 STEVENSEN AND VAN HORNE. 

paddle as best they could, the race was quickly 
over, and the two boys were dragged roughly 
into the big boat. 

A sailor smashed their frail canoe with an 
oar, and their hearts sank. What would they 
do now ? Captain Nielsen would surely go 
east ; for he had announced that he would put 
in at New Haven for further cargo. 

When they had clambered through one of the 
big ports, which opened in the high sides like 
doors, they were led to the captain. Diedrich 
gazed at him stolidly, Jan furtively, half-afraid 
yet defiant. 

" What are you doing here ? " 

Diedrich answered, telling the captain of their 
trip. Jan thought the captain's eyes twinkled, 
but he was worried by the captain's threat. 

"You lying rascals! You are spies! You 
think I am smuggling! I'll show you — I'll 
smuggle you ! Mate ! Hans ! " he called out 
sharply. "Tie a heavy weight to their feet and 
see how they swim ! " 

Even if Jan and Diedrich were not sure of the 
joke, the mate and Hans must have been ; for 
although they led the boys to the waist, and 
handled them roughly, they soon went about 
their business, and Jan and Diedrich gazed 



STEVENSEN AND VAN IIORNE. 51 

gloomily at the Indians, bringing furs aboard, 
and at the bustling crew. 

Now smuggling in New Amsterdam was 
unlike smuggling to-day, for in this country 
there can be a duty only on goods brought in, 
but the West India Company required payment 
on goods taken out. 

Peter Stuyvesant, the most famous of all the 
West India Company's governors, was in charge 
of New Amsterdam at this time. He was an 
irascible, loose-jawed, profane old man, who 
literally ruled New Amsterdam with his hot 
temper, his rough oaths and his wooden leg. 

Captain Nielsen knew as well as the lads that 
Governor Peter was in a high state of anger 
over smuggling, and that any man caught at it 
would suffer. That was why Jan and Diedrich 
were especially gloomy over their prospects. 

"We can jump at New Haven," Jan whis- 
pered, as the boys stood watching the loading. 

"It isn't likely that he will put in at New 
Haven at all, at least now that he is getting a 
full cargo," Diedrich answered. 

Jan was silent for a time, but he had a defiant 
light in his eyes which showed the desperate 
plans he was turning over in his mind. What- 
ever shape these may have taken, they were 



52 



STEVENSEN AND VAN HORNE. 



thwarted by an unexpected event ; for the rising 
easterly wind made it impossible for Captain 
Nielsen to sail through the Sound that night, 
with no lighthouses to guide his course, and 
beating is very slow work in a square rigger. 

Instead, he conceived the simple plan of 
running back through Hell Gate, passing the 

town after dark, and 
going through the 
Narrows and out to 
sea by Sandy Hook, 
which is to-day the 
course of the great 
transatlantic steamers 
Even if he were seen, 
J the very daring of the 
scheme would prevent 
suspicion. 

So, as soon as his 
trading with the In- 
dians was over, he 
crowded on full sail, 




DRIVING BEFORE THE HEAVY WIND. 



and driving before the heavy wind, plunged 
boldly through Hell Gate. 

The strength of the gale and the speed of his 
craft made this course safer than the wild waters 
seemed to promise, but to Diedrich and Jan 



STEVENSEN AND VAN HORNE. 53 

there was a terror in the spray which broke 
even over the high sides of the Steadfast. 

The sun had set, and the darkness of the 
night was relieved only by the faint light of a 
mist-covered moon. The rugged shore on both 
sides slipped rapidly by. 

When they were well toward the city, where 
the channel led them close to Allerton's ware- 
house, Diedrich and Jan found themselves alone 
on the high poop-deck, with Captain Nielsen at 
the tiller. To him the boys, in so far as he 
thought of them, were only troublesome. He 
may have intended to drop them as soon as 
occasion permitted ; for he could hardly use 
them in his crew, and he certainly was too 
thrifty to take them as passengers. Yet to drop 
them, to let them tell their story, meant to 
prevent his return to New Amsterdam. 

Jan, seeing that they were left alone, and the 
crew all forward or below, whispered to Died- 
rich: "We pass very close to the shore down 
by Allerton's. Shall we jump overboard and 
make a try for it? The captain will never dare 
stop for us." 

"All right," said Diedrich., "You go first and 
I'll follow." Then as the Steadfast bore close 
to the shore, Jan, climbing up the rail, prepared 



54 STEVENSEN AND VAN HORNE. 

to jump. Diedrich started to follow, but the 
outline of Jan's body against the sky-line caught 
Captain Nielsen's eye. 

With a quick bound he grabbed Jan by the 
ankle just as the lad was crouching for the 
spring. Jan lost his balance and fell outward 
but the captain held on to him and drew him 
back to the deck. Diedrich hung back in the 
shadow of the rail, and then, when he saw that 
Jan was firmly held, darted for the tiller. 

The ship was not twenty yards from shallow 
water, driving along at a fast clip. It was the 
work of but an instant to throw the heavy tiller 
hard over, so that the boat shot for the shore. 
The captain felt the swerve of his craft. He 
glanced back, saw Diedrich in the dim light, 
and made a spring for him. 

But Diedrich was ready. He threw a heavy 
thole-pin, which struck the captain full in the 
face with enough force to check his rush, and 
then he shouted to Jan : " Overboard, quick! " 

Jan clambered to the rail and jumped into 
the tide. Diedrich heard the splash as he struck 
the water, heard the rush of heavy boots 
along the deck as the crew came aft, and saw 
the captain recover himself and run toward him. 

But all the time the Steadfast was shooting 



STEVENSEN AND VAN HORNE. 



55 







TERDA.M \ 



for the shore, and just as the captain was nearly 
upon him, she grounded with a rough, grating 
sound, and then stopped with a jerk. 

Diedrich, dropping the tiller, was first to 
recover. He darted down the poop, to where 
the high rail dipped to the waist, and springing 
to the edge, dived overboard. He came up 
quickly and struck out for the shore. He 
had hardly gone ten 
feet when the cap- 
tain and three of his 
men went overboard 
together. 

It was a short swim, 
and Diedrich and Jan, accustomed to the water, 
were better swimmers than their pursuers. The 
boys reached the shallow water first, and splashed 
quickly through to the bank. 

Gaining the shore, Jan, who was ahead, led 
the way toward the scattered houses near by. 
They heard the rushing steps of the men behind 
and the cursing of Captain Nielsen. 

''Quick, Diedrich! To the tavern! If we 
try to hide here they'll get us, sure." 

So they ran through the streets, the sailors in 
close pursuit. But as they came to the more 
thickly settled parts, the men dropped back, and 



56 STEVENSEN AND VAN HORNE. 

Diedrich and Jan rushed on safely to the Harberg 
or Great Tavern, the social center of New 
Amsterdam. 

It was to this tavern that practically all the 
freeholders in the town, with their wives, resorted 
every evening for social gossip. The building 
was shortly afterward converted into the Stadt 
Huys, or State House, and stood where now 
is Coenties Slip on Pearl Street, and a tablet on 
a gloomy warehouse marks its site. 

To these gatherings of the social Dutch 
settlers came the captains from foreign ports ; 
the governor, who was more boisterous than 
irascible when off duty; Jacob Steendam, the 
first real poet of this continent ; and dozens of 
other notables. 

Governor Stuyvesant was talking loudly and 
emphatically to a roomful of men and women when 
Jan burst through the door. He had just said 
that the next smuggler he caught would be hung 
by his toes from the arms of a windmill in a gale. 

Jan tried to speak, but he was so excited that 
he only irritated the governor, who shouted at 
him in plain Dutch : " Get out of here, you impu- 
dent young brat! Don't you see that I am talking?" 

But Diedrich came forward. 

''There is a smuggler aground down by 




THE GOVERNOR GAZEU WITH STAKING EYES. 



58 STEVENSEN AND VAN HORNE. 

Allerton's," he asserted. " They took us aboard 
from our canoe because they were afraid we 
would inform you, and then they ran aground." 

The governor gazed at the boys with staring 
eyes. His suspicious old soul smelled a joke. 
But Jan's excitement was too real and Diedrich's 
statement too earnest to leave much doubt. 

" We shall see ! We shall see!" he shouted. 
*' If you are telling the truth, you won't be sorry, 
but if you are lying," — and he stamped his 
ornamented wooden leg, — "I'll fix you both!" 

With a party of soldiers and a curious crowd 
of citizens at his heels, the governor led the 
way to the river, with Jan and Diedrich by his 
side. When they reached the waterside, the 
captain and his men were laboring with all their 
strength to move their vessel. But she was 
hard aground, and a falling tide was making 
her more solid every minute. 

Captain Nielsen's courage never failed him 
in emergencies, and he immediately assumed the 
semblance of innocence. When the governor, 
with many oaths, ordered him ashore, he came 
as if he were a much-abused man. 

He told the governor that a couple of rascally 
boys, whom he had picked up from their frail 
canoe, had run his boat ashore, and that he 



STEVENSEN AND VAN HORNE. 



59 



OLD PRINT. 



would have them punished if there was any 
justice in Holland or the New Netherlands. 

"Oh, there's justice enough!" roared the 
governor. "And if what they tell me of smug- 
gling is true, you will find it before another 
sunset, you and your drunken sailors." 

Captain Nielsen scoffed disgustedly: "Didn't 
I register every item of my cargo this afternoon 
when you were at 
the dock? How 
can I be smug- 
gling when I paid 
my duties?" 

/'He took a lot 
of furs from the 
Indians' canoes 
up in Flushing 
Bay," put in Jan. 




I haven't a 



THE PALISADE 



NOW WALL STREET. 



fur aboard which I haven't paid duty on ! " 
shouted Captain Nielsen. 

" We shall see ! We shall see ! " said Governor 
Stuyvesant. " Bring a boat! " 

There was a long delay ; then the boys heard 
the governor storming roughly, and Jan's quick 
ears heard rambling curses about "two lying 
whelps of boys," which made him tremble. 



60 STEVENSEN AND VAN HORNE. 

Peter Stuyvesant came ashore in a passion. 
He stumped over the rocks to where the boys 
stood, and threatened them with his staff. 

Indeed, it would have gone hard with them, if 
at just that moment Jacob Steendam, the poet, 
standing close by the waterside, had not spied 
a floating object, and pulling it ashore, found it 
to be a bale of furs not even soaked through. 

He bore them to the governor. " I think, sir, 
the boys are telling the truth. I just fished this 
out of the water, and it hasn't been there long. 
No doubt we can find more if we look for them." 

The governor, angrier than ever now, went 
back to the boat, and with his men searched 
about in the dark, picking up a number of other 
bales, and missing many which were discovered 
about the harbor the next day. 

When he came back he spoke almost kindly 
to the boys. ''You have done well, boys, and 
I will not forget you." 

Captain Nielsen and his men did not hang 
by their toes, but they were sent to Holland 
and imprisoned for many years. The governor, 
when he heard the next day that the Steadfast 
did not run aground through accident, broke 
into a loud laugh. "The little rascals!" he 
shouted. '' Send them to me ! " 



STEVENSEN AND VAN HORNE. 61 

Jan and Diedrich were brought before him. 

'* I said I would not forget you boys, and I 
will not. I have to take the smuggled furs and 
the ship for the company, but you can have all 
the rest of the cargo." 

The boys went away in high spirits. Jan had 
many schemes, but Diedrich's sounder judgment 
prevailed, and it was not very many years before 
these two founded the house of Stevensen & 
Van Home, Exporters, with the money they 
received for these furs. 

From a little beginning they developed a 
great business house, whose ships were known 
in every port, of the world, even long after they 
were dead. 

The first modest shop occupied by these lads 
was located among the sparse Dutch cottages 
along the way they ran from the furious captain 
to the Harberg, where now stand immense 
business buildings, where princely merchants 
with modern methods command the commerce 
of a continent in the same spirit of enterprise 
begun by Stevensen and Van Home. 

Martin M. Foss. 



MARQUETTE'S DISCOVERY. 

THE discovery of the Mississippi by De Soto, 
and the burial of that cavalier in its depths 
at night, are very poetic and picturesque events 
of our history. But the northern discovery of 
the great river by Marquette and Joliet, if less 
dramatic, is wonderfully attractive in historical 
incidents and coloring. 

Cast your eye over the map of the Great 
Lakes and the Mississippi Valley, and you may 
see at a glance the route of the Jesuit father, 
Marquette, from the Canadian north to Green 
Bay, and thence to the Wisconsin River. 

It was early summer when Marquette launched 
his canoes on the Wisconsin. On June 17, 
1673, beyond the blooming bluffs a great tide 
met the Wisconsin at a place where is now the 
city of Prairie du Chien. The canoe of Marquette 
drifted down the greater stream, and the pilot- 
missionary found himself on the Mississippi. 

It has been asserted that La Salle saw the 
Mississippi before Marquette; but La Salle him- 
self, in whose enterprise both Marquette and 
Joliet were engaged, never asserted a title to 
the discovery. 



MARQUETTE'S DISCOVERY. 



63 



As Marquette passed down the great river that 
opened to him, his eye was suddenly arrested by 
the effigies of two dragons on the high bluffs, 
or rocks, at a point near where the city of Alton 
now stands. Each effigy, he says, "was as 
big as a calf." They were colored green and 










HIS EYE WAS SUDDENLY ARRESTED. 



red, had scales, and the tails were wound round 
their bodies and ended like fishes. 

Marquette was, to use his own language, filled 
with terror at the sight. He believed that the 
evil one was the lord of the wilderness, despite 
the sunshine, the song-birds and flowers, and 
that this dark dominion was to disappear before 
the coming of the Cross. 

Marquette made a sketch of the two dragons 



64 MARQUETTE'S DISCOVERY. 

of the Mississippi. It was preserved by the 
French intendants of Canada, and copies of it 
are yet to be seen. 

The Dragon Rocks have crumbled. In i860 
the pictures had disappeared, and about that 
date efforts were made to restore them. But 
the hammers of science have wholly changed 
the appearance of the place, which for some 
two hundred years was known, and appeared on 
old maps, as Castle Rocks. 

Marquette passed the mounds where St. Louis 
now stands, and the mouths of the three rivers, 
the Missouri, the Illinois and the Ohio. The 
summer deepened ; the world grew more bright 
and entrancing. He returned, but worn out 
with the hardships of his voyage, soon after died. 

Thus France, through her discoveries and by 
colonization, laid claim to the country from the 
St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and from 
the Allegheny to the Rocky Mountains. Canada 
was ceded to England ; the Louisiana Purchase 
gave the Mississippi Valley and the Northwest 
Territory to the United States. 

Hezekiah Butterworth. 



IN COLONIAL DAYS. 




THEY SEIZED HER BY ^E WRISTS. 



DIANTHE AND THE WITCH. 




/■N 



AY, Giles; no need to tell 

me thou'rt going to Wenham 

Lake to fish!" the old woman 

said, angrily. "No good'll ever 

come to thee there. I know how 

she holds thee with spells — " 

"Mother, mother," Giles cried, "I know it 

likes thee not that I go to Dorothy Wayne ; but 

such talk is dangerous! As thou holdst me 

dear, say naught of spells to any gossip of thine." 

It was the year 1692, the time of the terrible 

witchcraft delusion. Giles bent affectionately 

and coaxingly over his mother for a farewell 

caress, which she gave eagerly, throwing her 

arms about his neck and holding him back. 

Then she watched him go across the porch, and 

down under the trees of the fragrant woodland. 

Her face worked strangely, and gradually grew 

hard. She set her wheel in the corner, took down 

her red cloak from the press, and went across 

the fields to Master Parris's house in Salem town. 

The minister surmised her errand. "You are 

come at a good time, Dame Margery. Know 

you aught of your son's whereabouts?" 

"Alas, do I!" Margery answered bitterly. 



68 DIANTHE AND THE WITCH. 

"He is gone to Wenham Lake; and much I 
fear me no good spell draws him there." 

" I feared it, I feared it! Much has come to 
our ears concerning the unholy spells and 
charms of Dorothy Wayne. I trust he has not 
been misled by them." 

A wave of hot anger flamed over Dame 
Margery's face. " He is bewitched, and he 
heeds naught from me! Master Parris, on his 
coat, Monday morn, when I brushed it, was a 
long golden hair. I tried to brush it off, and it 
clung and curled about my hands." 

In a carefully guarded voice, the minister 
said, "Why did you not think to burn it?" 

"I did, but the evil thing would not burn! 
A sudden wind whirled it up chimney." 

The minister's face grew very grave, but his 
tone was one of carefully repressed eagerness. 
He watched the woman narrowly. 

"I fear me that young man has been foully 
dealt with. I know how it lies on your heart, 
dame, but have no fear for him. She shall be 
entreated, and the mischief stopped." 

Again Margery grew pale. "I know naught," 
she said. " I've seen naught — " 

Master Parris leaned toward her, laying a 
hand on her wrist. "Ann Putnam hath seen 



DIANTHE AND THE WITCH. 69 

her in the moonlight, with loosened hair and 
waving arms, singing a charm round a dried-up 
well. Elizabeth Hubbard saw her mutter spells 
that drew swarms of wild bees to her hive. 
And Goodman True saw her wile fish to the 
shore to feed from her hands." 

A terrified look had come into Dame Margery's 
face, and he touched again the chord which had 
worked for his purpose: ''Moreover, in the 
meeting, look how she draws all the young 
men's eyes. Hast seen the mole on her chin?" 

Dame Margery started. " 'Tis Satan's sign 
and seal!" she cried, in a low, horrified tone. 

''And verily do I fear this son of thine is in 
her power, but even now godly men are working 
for his salvation." 

That same evening two stern-faced men rode 
slowly along the shore of Wenham Lake. Sud- 
denly one of the two reined in his horse and 
pointed to a woman on the shore. 

Her hands were upraised to bind a trailing 
vine about an oak branch, and she was so 
absorbed in the happy thoughts which sung 
themseh^es into a familiar psalm-tune that she 
did not notice the quiet approach of the men, 
who now stood close behind her. As she 
lowered her arms, they seized her by the wrists. 



70 DIANTHE AND THE WITCH. 

The girl turned with a startled cry ; but seeing 
only the well-known faces of Marshal Herrick 
and Robert Neal, she said, with a little laugh, 
'*Good even to you, Master Herrick! Master 
Neal, you nigh frighted me." Then as they 
stood silent, '' Loose my hands now, pray you. 
I ne'er knew you to tease before." 

The men, grim and unsmiling, answered 
never a word to Dorothy's speech. They stood, 
looking silently at each other. And then Her- 
rick, drawing from his pocket a cord, began to 
tie it about the girl's wrists. 

" What would you ? " she cried. " Surely this 
is an unseemly jest, and a long one. Loose 
me, masters; my mother waits me." 

Then Herrick spoke quite harshly: "She will 
find other ministering. The service of a witch 
cannot be profitable, even to bodily comfort." 

A cry of anguish escaped from the girl. '*I 
must go ! " and with a look of wild appeal she 
faced the men. '' She is blind! " 

"Thou must come with us," Herrick made 
answer, "into Salem town, forthwith;" and paying 
no heed to her desperate struggles, they dragged 
Dorothy Wayne to the horses, fastened the cord, 
which bound her cruelly chafed wrists, to the 
saddle-bow, and compelled her to walk into Salem. 



DIANTHE AND THE WITCH. 71 

Arrived at the house of Jonathan Corwin, the 
magistrate, where she was to be had in safe- 
keeping for the night, they half-led, half-dragged 
her up the garret stairs, fastened the door with 
a strong iron bolt, and left her until the next 
day, when her trial was to take place in the 
meeting-house. 

As Dorothy was led into the house, a child, 
looking from an upper window, had caught 
sight of her face in the light of the open door, 
and with a glad cry had darted down the stairs 
— to find no one! 

Presently the child's father with Herrick and 
Neal appeared from the door leading to the 
garret. Master Corwin was evidently ill-pleased 
to see the little face eagerly waiting for him. 

Before the child could speak he put his hand 
on her shoulder, and led her toward the door. 

"What dost here, Dianthe?" he said, a little 
sternly. "Maids of thy years should be asleep 
at this hour." 

"Nay, father," she said. "I was nigh there 
when I heard a horse's tramp, and looked from 
the window to see who came. Then I saw 
Dorothy, and ran down. Where is she?" 

The father's face hardened. " Get thee to bed, 
child. To-morrow will be time enow to talk of her." 



72 DIANTHE AND THE WITCH. 

"Nay, nay," said Dianthe, with a little wilful 
air, which at other times her father thought 
vastly bewitching, **I must know now! Sure, 
she looked not well. What aileth her, father? 
And why must I not see her?" 

The father's voice grew stern as he said, "The 
woman Dorothy Wayne is prisoner here, to be 
brought before the court to-morrow and tried 
for witchcraft. My daughter hath no part nor 
lot with such." 

With an indignant movement the child slipped 
from his arm and confronted him. " Who saith 
that, father?" 

" Many," he answered, gravely. " Her specter 
hath haunted the parsonage and sorely afflicted 
litde Elizabeth. She hath bewitched many. 
Dame Margery Howe came to the minister's 
only this morning, sore troubled because of the 
bewitchment of her son — " 

"They lie, father, they lie!" cried the girl, 
her small frame dilating with passionate protest. 
"The sweetest, kindest — O father!" 

"She hath bewitched thee, too," said Corwin, 
sadly. Then he put his two hands on her 
shoulders and his voice grew fierce with the 
terrible fanaticism of the day: "Child, child, 
think of the power these emissaries of Satan 



DIANTHE AND THE WITCH. 



73 



have over us! See how they multiply apace! 
They must be stamped out ! The land must 
be delivered! If Dorothy Wayne confess and 
repent, well ; if not — " He frowned gloomily. 




THE JUDGE COKWIN HOUSE, SALEM. 



Dianthe caught her breath in a sudden, gasp- 
ing sob. ''Father! Father! You will not let 
them hurt her! I love her! Father," — clinging 
passionately about his neck, — "you will not!" 

Her father put the clinging arms away, not 
ungently, as he said, "The Lord's work must 
be done, daughter. This hand may not spare 
when the Lord commandeth to slay." 



74 DIANTHE AND THE WITCH. 

Dianthe's lips parted for another appeal, but 
a quick change came over her face. That 
curious likeness to her father became more 
pronounced; a sudden light filled her eyes, and 
she turned to leave the room. 



When Dorothy heard the heavy bolt pushed 
into the socket, she sank upon the floor, over- 
whelmed with terror. Then starting up with 
the feeling that she must escape, she groped 
with outstretched hands toward the square of 
light made by the window. 

Leaning out, she could dimly see the sloping 
roof, and knew that somewhere, far below, was 
the ground, the blessed ground, which she dared 
not try to reach. She tried to pray, but mock- 
ing faces peered at her out of the gloom. She 
began to wonder if she could have committed 
some secret sin, which had placed her in league 
with the Powers of Evil. 

The horror grew, until the bats, circling over 
her head, seemed to the poor girl busy fiends, 
haunting and pursuing her; and she threw up 
her arms to ward them off, shrieking aloud, till 



DIANTHE AND THE WITCH. 75 

a merciful lethargy fell upon her, and she 
crouched in the stupor of exhaustion. 

Meanwhile, in the room below, her little 
friend, with eyes alight with determination, 
bided her time. When the house was quite 
still, she slipped softly down the stairs, carrying 
her shoes in her hand, slid back the bolt of the 
kitchen door, and stood outside in the dim light 
of a waning moon, alone in the night. 

Everything was strange to her startled senses, 
every rustle in the grass, every moan of the wind 
in the pines, the hoot of a distant owl, all seemed 
the sign of some enemy of her Dorothy, waiting 
to defeat her purpose. 

A neighbor's dog howled, and Dianthe ran 
till she fell, sure that Stubb was pursuing her, 
and would attack, although in the daylight they 
were good friends. She lay still a moment, 
listening for the swift patter of his feet, but he 
did not come; and just beyond was Dame 
Margery's cottage. 

She caught her breath, wondering what she 
could say if she roused the dame. Then finding 
a pebble, she threw it deftly against the window. 
A stir within made her heart throb with fear, 
but it was the face of Giles which peered from 
the window ; and she called softly, " Hist, Giles ! " 



76 DIANTHE AND THE WITCH. 

In a few breathless words she told him of 
Dorothy's arrest and danger, and in an incred- 
ibly short time Giles, with Dianthe on a pillion 
behind him, was speeding over the road she 
had so bravely travelled alone. 

Just below the house he tethered his horse 
to a tree, and the two advanced cautiously 
under the garret window. 

"See, it's not very high," Dianthe whispered. 
"You can easily catch her." 

Dorothy's stupor was suddenly pierced by a 
clear, low whistle. She listened, bewildered. 
She had heard that whistle in the morning ; she 
must have been dreaming, and she was again 
sinking into that merciful lethargy when the 
whistle came again, soft and clear. This time she 
knew she was awake, and sprang to the window. 

Below her, in the half-light, she could dimly 
see two figures, and Dianthe's voice called softly 
to her: "Don't be afraid, Dorothy, dear! Just 
slide down, and Giles will catch thee. Quick ! " 
she urged, as Dorothy hesitated. "I did it a 
year agone but for fun." 

Dorothy felt life and hope coming back with 
a sudden rush. She set her feet outside the 
narrow ledge, held an instant to the window- 
frame, and then let herself go. 



DIANTHE AND THE WITCH. 77 

One frightful instant she felt as if falling 
through immeasurable space; then she stood 
safe on the ground, with Dianthe's arms about 
her neck, and Dianthe's eager voice whispering 
to her: "Quick, quick, before the dawn!" 

The child saw them safely mounted and pacing 
softly away ; waited, until at a safe distance the 
hoof-beats changed to a swift gallop ; then she 
stole into the house, softly drew the bolt in its 
place, and, once more safe in her own room, 
dropped on the floor, a shivering, crouching 
little figure, shaken with a storm of stified sobs. 






SIGNATURES OF THE WITCHCRAFT JUDGES. 



The meeting-house was packed. The magis- 
trates, John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, 
were sitting there. Elizabeth Carey was to be 
tried, and then the Witch of Wenham; and 
every hour piled up the evidence against them. 

On the outskirts of the crowd Dame Margery, 
with furtive anxiety, studied the faces of 
her neighbors. Early that morning she had 



78 DIANTHE AND THE WITCH. 

discovered that Giles was not in his chamber, and 
later that his horse was missing from the stall, 
and she guiltily suspected some connection 
between that unusual circumstance and her visit 
to the minister. 

What with her exacting love for her son, her 
jealousy, her terror lest Giles had learned of 
that visit, and her tormenting ignorance of his 
whereabouts, she was having a sorry time of it. 
Her neighbors had no leisure to bestow upon 
her, and her distress was unheeded in the 
absorbing events of the day. 

Elizabeth Carey was brought in, a woman of 
noble presence. Her accusers were girls of 
nine and eleven years. 

The excited crowd listened in credulous horror 
while Ann Putnam told how Mistress Carey had 
stuck pins in her, and Elizabeth Parris and 
Abigail Williams had had the colic, and been 
made dumb when she had appeared to them at 
divers times, and in divers forms. And who 
could doubt, when the mere glance of the 
prisoner was enough to throw the children on 
the floor, writhing in convulsions? 

Then the solemn examination began, to be 
interrupted by John Hathorne with a solemn 
adjuration to the prisoner to confess. If she 



DIANTHE AND THE WITCH. 79 

would confess, mercy should be shown her, but 
there was but one law for an unrepentant witch. 

Mistress Carey said she had nothing to con- 
fess, and could not soil her lips with a lie. The 
examiners groaned, and called the witnesses. 
One had lost a cow after some words with the 
accused. Another could not pass her house 
without his wagon breaking down, and after 
working in her garden he had had a paralyzed 
arm. And many had seen her appear in the 
form of a cow or a dog, and then vanish with 
demoniac laughter. 

The crowd listened in breathless silence, and 
craned curious necks to see, while the witnesses 
against the quiet, kindly woman, who stood 
with bound hands in the prisoner's box, swore 
to and signed the deposition. 

Mistress Carey was remanded to prison, to 
await the day of her execution, which never 
came; for as the old Salem Town Chronicle 
tells it, " Her husband did, unholily, not having 
the fear of God before his eyes, and doubtless 
helped by her own wicked arts, steal her away 
from the righteous retribution of her misdeeds, 
and flee with her to a distant part of the country." 

At the close of Elizabeth Carey's trial a 
deputation was sent to bring Dorothy Wayne 



80 DIANTHE AND THE WITCH. 

from Master Corwin's house. Returning almost 
immediately, with looks of consternation, the 
men reported the garret, in which Master 
Corwin himself had seen her bestowed, to be 
empty, although the bolt had been fastened with 
a padlock, the key to which had never left 
him, even for a moment. No other egress was 
possible without wings — or the broomstick, 
which she had undoubtedly used. 

A thrill of horror swept through the crowd. 
A witch like that, and at large! What might 
she not do in vengeance! 

But Margery Howe drew a great breath of 
relief. Her face, which had grown deadly pale 
while the messengers were gone, regained its 
color ; and disregarding the general excitement, 
she slipped away home, self-convicted, yet exult- 
ant. She knew that wherever Giles and his 
horse were, there was Dorothy Wayne. And 
then Margery Howe dropped on her knees, and 
prayed for the safety of the girl she had hated. 

A pursuit was organized. Mounted on the 
fastest horses in the town, they searched every 
road leading from Salem for the next four days. 
At last, baffled and weary, they gave it up ; and 
no semblance of Dorothy Wayne was seen in 
Salem township again, save that some declared 



DIANTHE AND THE WITCH. 81 

that her shape had been seen flitting by the 
shores of Wenham water, and hovering about 
the deserted cottage, from which her bHnd 
mother had also disappeared. 

At sunset of that memorable day a tired 
horse, panting under his double burden, stopped 
at the door of a hospitable farmhouse in Berwick, 
and a peaceful-faced matron, in Friend's dress, 
came out to receive the weary fugitives. 

"Come right in!" said the cordial voice 
of the matron. "Thee shall have supper first, 
and tell thy story afterwards." 

A few years later Dianthe, advanced to the 
dignity of long kirdes and a coif, sat on the 
vine-shaded porch of that same hospitable house, 
with her arms folded in Dorothy's lap. Out in 
the sunny field Giles tossed great masses of 
fragrant hay up into the cart, and at the other 
end of the porch Friend Deborah sat reading to 
Dorothy's blind mother. 

"Nay, 'twas not I, Dorothy, dear," the girl 
was saying; "it was Giles." 

And Dorothy, touching tenderly the dark 
hair, answered, " Nay, but I owe it all to the 
brave heart of my little Di." 

Helen Kane. 



THE REGICIDES. 

ONE of the greatest tragedies recorded in 
the history of England, the execution of 
Charles I, had its miserable sequel and ending 
in a quiet New England village. 

Of the judges who sentenced the king to 
death, the most austere were Edward Whalley 
and his son-in-law, William Goffe. Whalley 
was a cousin to Cromwell, and held a high place 
in the Commonwealth. Goffe was a member of 
Parliament, and a general in Cromwell's army. 

Both men fied when Charles II returned to 
England. In 1660 they came openly to Boston, 
and were received cordially by the Puritan author- 
ities. They lived comfortably in Cambridge for 
about six months, went to church and to public 
meetings, and received visits. 

News was then brought from England that 
seven of the regicides were condemned to death. 
Whalley and Goffe, who were of the number, 
took alarm and tied to New Haven, where they 
stayed in hiding until a royal mandate was 
received by the colonies, ordering their arrest. 

Loyal young men traversed the country from 



THE REGICIDES. 83 

Boston to South Carolina, summoning all good 
subjects, in the king's name, to aid in bringing 
these murderers to the gallows. 

The two judges, in mortal terror, left New 
Haven at night, and took refuge in a mill at 
Hatchet Harbor, where they lay hid among the 
sacks of grain. A farmer, named Richard Sperry, 
then brought them to a cave in a wild part of the 
forest, the existence of which was known only 
to himself. Here they lived for several months, 
with no more comforts than the beasts of prey. 

Sperry's son Joe, when an old man, told that 
his father used to give him every day a basket 
of food to carry into the woods, and to leave on 
a certain stump. The next day the empty 
platters were ready for him. 

When the Indians discovered their cave in 
the spring, the judges fled to Milford, many 
miles distant, hiding in the woods by day and 
journeying by night. 

At Milford they were hidden by a man named 
Tomkins in his cellar for two years. A vener- 
able president of Yale College, who had collected 
the facts concerning these men, states that they 
did not even venture once into the garden or 
orchard during these years, so constant was the 
danger of discovery. 



84 THE REGICIDES. 

At the end of this time they were taken into 
the house of a Puritan minister named Russell, 
at Hadley. A secret chamber was built for 
them, and there they remained for more than 
sixteen years, not even the children of the family 
knowing of the presence in their home of these 
hunted, miserable men. 

Traditions of the old families of Hadley and 
New Haven give us glimpses of the dreadful 
solitude and the narrow escapes of the fugitives. 

Once, before they reached Hadley, they were 
pursued by a body of armed men across a bridge. 
Taking refuge behind a large sycamore, they 
fired on their pursuers from both sides of it. 
The men held a council, and resolved to go back 
to town for arms. When they came back the 
regicides had disappeared, and the woods were 
searched for them in vain. They were all the 
time under the bridge, up to their necks in water. 
The feet of their pursuers tramped all night just 
over their heads. 

After several years had passed, the report 
that Whalley and Goffe had died in Jamaica 
reached the country. On hearing it the poor 
prisoners, we are told, thanked God. They never 
ventured, however, to leave their secret chamber, 
although the men in this country were dead 



THE REGICIDES. 



85 



who had known and pursued them. To be 
discovered they knew meant certain death. 

There is a legend that Goffe, a soldier of hotter 
blood than his companion, twice ventured out of 
the secret chamber. The I ndians attacked Hadley , 




AN AGED MAN 
LED THEM TO BATTLE. 



and the people ran hither and thither in wild 
dismay, when, it is said, " an aged man in strange 
garments, with long gray beard," appeared 
among them, marshaled, and led them to battle. 
When the enemy was routed he disappeared. 



86 THE REGICIDES. 

Another time an English gentleman, becoming 
straitened for money while in America, advertised 
that he would give an exhibition of sword-play, 
and challenged all comers to combat. Nobody 
in the town could use a sword. But while he 
stood on the stage, flourishing his weapon, a 
farmer in a huge, many-caped coat advanced 
from the audience, bearing a cheese for a shield 
and a broom dripping with mud as a weapon. 

He began to fight, received the sword-thrusts 
in his cheese, and occasionally daubed the face 
and laced doublet of his antagonist with the 
muddy broom. At last, throwing away the 
shield, he set at work in earnest, using the broom 
as a sword, and so rapid and fierce was his attack 
that in a few moments his adversary was dis- 
armed and his weapon sent spinning in the air. 
The Englishman stared in consternation, and is 
reported to have said, "You are either the devil 
or William Goffe!" 

Goffe, it appears, had taught this brother ofificer 
to fence, and seeing his challenge, could not 
resist the temptation to have a bout with him. 

After this extraordinary victory he hurried 
through the crowd into the night and vanished^ 
never again to appear in the sight of men. 

Whalley died in extreme old age and was 



THE REGICIDES. 87 

secretly buried by the minister in his cellar. 
Goffe died a few years later. There was a 
legend among the old people of Hadley, that 
when they were children, a mysterious nameless 
grave lay across the boundari.o*. of two lots, and 
it was darkly whispered that the body of a crim- 
inal was hidden below, which if discovered by the 
English governor would be horribly dealt with. 

There can be little doubt that this unfortunate 
body was that of Goffe. Its burial in the grounds 
of two landlords was supposed to be of some 
protection to it. 

Goffe's diary in cipher was sent to a Boston 
library. There it lay unread for nearly a century. 
It was deciphered at last, and the story of the 
hiding-place of the two judges in the Russell 
house for the first time revealed. 

Rebecca Harding Davis. 



THE PURITAN PARSON. 

TT was meeting-time in Hansfield, Massachusetts 
^ Bay Colony, on a Sunday morning in June, 
1676. The fifty or sixty log buildings which 
made up the settlement stood silent as so many 
tombs among the stumps of the half-cleared 
field, for every soul in the place was in the 
meeting-house on the hill, except Abner True. 

Abner True, whose father was a deacon and 
tithing-man, and counted second only to the 
minister himself in rigid piety, was actually play- 
ing truant from meeting; and this in a village 
which looked upon Plymouth and Weymouth as 
dangerously worldly towns, relaxed in morals 
and manners by overmuch prosperity. 

But Abner had worked from sun to sun every 
day of the last week, and knew he must do the 
same every day of the next week and the week 
after that, and every week of the long summer. 

It seemed to him too hard that on this one 
day of rest he should be obliged to sit upon a 
backless plank bench all the forenoon. Abner 
felt sure that the sermon would not be a short 
one this day, and the more he thought of it the 



THE PURITAN PARSON. 89 

more he dreaded it, until he became wilHng to 
incur any punishment for the sake of escaping 
that long discourse. 

So when Deacon Amos, with his wife and 
younger children, were ready for meeting, no 
Abner could be found. Hidden in the little 
haymow of the rough barn, he saw the family 
depart, his father marching ahead, equipped 
with musket, bandoleer and powder-horn; for 
King Philip and his Indians were at war against 
the whites, and no man throughout the colony 
went to field or church without his arms. 

Similar groups, similarly accoutered, paced 
solemnly along toward the rude sanctuary upon 
the hill, until Abner, seeing that all Hansfield 
had passed, felt that he was safe for the present, 
and lay down upon the soft hay to prepare for 
the sound nap he had so longed for. But 
between his guilty consciousness of what he 
had done and his dread of what Deacon Amos 
would do, Abner could not manage to sleep. 

The time went on, when he heard a sound 
that wakened him quite, and he sprang up to 
listen. A swishing in the tall grass, and a snap 
of a twig alarmed him. He grabbed his gun 
and peered through a crack in the barn ; then he 
rushed headlong out of the back door up the 



90 



THE PURITAN PARSON. 



meeting-house hill to warn the worshipers of 
the coming danger. 

In the meeting-house Parson Pladley had 
turned his big hour-glass twice, and now the 
sands of the third hour were almost spent. 

The heavy door was flung open and shut 
again with a loud bang that startled every mem- 
ber of the congregation. A boy, staggering, and 

streaming with per- 
spiration, ran up the 
broad aisle and fell 
exhausted at the foot 
of the pulpit. Every 
man stretched out his 
hand to the musket 
that stood beside 
him ; but no one rose, 
no one said a word 
or uttered an excla- 




THE MEETING-HOUSE ON THE HILL, 



mation. Whatever 
the danger was, this was God's house, and in it 
none but God's servant should raise a voice or 
venture upon any action unless he permitted. 

The minister descended from his place, leaned 
over the panting Abner and caught the few words 
the boy had strength to whisper : *' Savages steal- 
ing up — to take us unaware!" 



THE PURITAN PARSON. 91 

The minister returned to the pulpit. '' Kindle 
your matches, brethren," said he, in a voice of 
perfect tranquillity. The ring of flint and steel 
sounded all over the house. 

'' Make ready your guns," continued the min- 
ister, taking up a heavy musket, and blowing 
the match, or fuse, by which it was discharged. 
"Musketeers, to your stations. Ye that have 
but swords or pikes, sit fast." 

The congregation obeyed these orders as 
calmly as they had been given. Twenty-five 
men, headed by Deacon True, silently ranged 
themselves at the loopholes which were pierced 
in the door and along the walls. 

Parson Pladley looked at the hour-glass, which 
still continued to run, and quietly resumed his 
duty of preaching his sermon. 

On the benches the listeners kept their com- 
posed countenances turned upon the preacher, 
whose words sounded through the house : "And 
even as aforetime the heathen did furiously 
rage, and did compass the children of the cove- 
nant with spear and with javelin round about — " 

A high-pitched, thrilling screech filled the air 
without, and now rose above the minister's voice. 
There came quick, sharp patterings on the roof 
and walls like hailstones. 



92 THE PURITAN PARSON. 

Enoch Brett fell backward from his loophole, 
hit by an arrow. Another man rose from his 
seat, picked up the gun which Brett had dropped, 
and took the vacant station. 

A dozen muskets answered the storm of mis- 
siles. Their fire seemed to check the advance of 
the Indians, inasmuch as the war-cry grew fainter 
and the pattering of the arrows diminished. 

Parson Pladley had not interrupted his sermon, 
although his voice had been drowned by the 
noise of the assault and defense. 

All the men who could act were at their posts ; 
why should he not continue to the end? His 
sense of duty told him that he ought not to 
cease his holy office before the appointed time, 
except under compulsion, in which he must 
recognize the hand of God. 

His hearers understood this as well as if he 
had declared his determination in so many 
words. They did their part by listening with 
steady attention. 

Again the cries grew louder and arrow- flights 
thicker. The guns replied, but this time the 
attack was not repulsed. A ponderous thump- 
ing on the door, which shook the whole build- 
ing, told that some kind of battering-ram was 
employed to break It down. 



THE PURITAN PARSON. 



93 



Only a pinch or two of sand remained in the 
hour-glass. Still it was not quite empty, and 
the Puritan Parson preached on. 

Crash ! The door was half off its hinges. The 
firearms men crowded behind It, and delivered 
a volley that appeared for a 
minute to clear the passage. 
The parson's lips could be seen 
to move, although 
his voice was not 
heard in the din. 

A renewed yell 
and the crashing 
blows once more 
beat upon the 
door. No shots 
answered thistime, 
for the muskets 
were empty. 

An arrow whis- 
tled across the 
church and stuck 
quivering in the pulpit. Round the edges of 
the shattered door hatchets and clubs were 
brandished in the faces of the defenders, 
who dashed them aside with the butts of their 
guns. The women began to scream. 




94 THE PURITAN PARSON. 

The last sand ran out of the hour-glass. Par- 
son Pladley bowed his head and said, "Amen!" 
And all the congregation answered in tones of 
solemn reverence, *'Amen!" 

Up sprang the hitherto motionless listeners, 
women to the rear, men to the front ; and from 
the pulpit the old minister, with sword and gun, 
led the way to the aid of the others, who were 
beginning to give ground before the mass of 
hideously painted figures who were forcing their 
way through the entrance. 

Then came out another side of the Puritan 
character. The fierce energy, almost joy, with 
which the colonists fought was as surprising as 
the stony self-control they had shown but a 
moment before. Ahead of them all, Parson 
Pladley swung his mighty sword with cries 
which betrayed the old horse-soldier of Crom- 
well and Harrison, for such he had been ; and 
of those who followed him, more than one had 
stood in the ranks of the pikemen who met the 
charges of Prince Rupert's Cavaliers. 

As if he remembered this, the minister lifted 
up his strong voice in a stern psalm which had 
thundered over the battle-fields of Naseby and 
Marston Moor, the war-song of David the king, 
rejoicing over his victory: "I have pursued 



THE PURITAN PARSON. 95 

mine enemies and overtaken them ; neither did 
I turn again till they were consumed ; for Thou 
hast girded me with strength unto the battle." 

The Indians were like wolves combating lions. 
They shrank, wavered, and were pressed back 
to the door, through it, and outside of it. Then, 
by one last rush, they were broken, scattered 
and dispersed. They ran in every direction for 
the shelter of the woods ; many of them fell by 
the way under the pikes and swords of their 
pursuers. Hansfield was saved. 

Within the meeting-house, dim with powder- 
smoke and heaped with broken benches, arrows 
and the wounded men, the congregation gathered 
round its minister, who, blackened and bloody, 
with gown torn to shreds and a great slash 
across his forehead, once more raised up his 
voice, this time in the glorious strains of one of 
their triumphant hymns. 

All joined in it, even the wounded, who could 
scarcely lift their heads from the ground, and 
the dying, who sang their last breaths away in 
the grateful chorus of thanksgiving for the safety 
of those they loved more than life. 

When the injured had been cared for, and 
there was once more time for ordinary matters, 
the parson called Abner True to him. 



96 THE PURITAN PARSON. 

"Son Abner, thou didst well so cunningly to 
avoid those ruthless savages, and privily warn 
us betimes. For this thou meritest reward." 

Abner looked up astonished. "And this shall 
be thy reward, that for thy wilful tarrying away 
from the sanctuary thou shalt receive no disci- 
pline from the church." 

" But my father will — " stammered the boy. 

" Of a surety he will," placidly replied the 
minister, "and I trust it may do thee good." 

"Come with me, Abner," said Deacon Amos. 

Manlev H. Pike. 




THE WESLEYS IN GEORGIA. 

THE good ship Simmonds, dropping down 
from Gravesend on an October day in the 
year 1735, carried an uncommon cargo, as well 
as a large one. It consisted mainly of human 
beings, English, Irish, Scots and Germans. 
Conspicuous on the crowded deck was James 
Edward Oglethorpe, chief of the ''Trustees for 
Settling and Establishing the Colony of Georgia." 
Attending him, and watching the odd scene 
with eager interest, were two young men, small 
in stature and spare of frame, yet for all that 
wearing somewhat of the aspect of authority. 
They were John and Charles Wesley. 

Probably no pioneers were ever inspired with 
motives purer than those that guided the founders 
of Georgia. British statesmen could find more 
than one reason to approve a setdement south 
of the Carolinas, a project which meant the rais- 
ing of another bulwark against the Spaniards. 
But the British philanthropists who, in 1732, 
procured letters patent from George II, had no 
end in view in the colony they named for him, 



98 THE WESLEYS IN GEORGIA. 

except to provide a refuge for insolvent debtors 
and persecuted Protestants, to whom the Old 
World had proved unkind. 

Early in 1733 the first settlers arrived, and 
Oglethorpe established them at the spot where 
Savannah now stands. A fort was built, a treaty 
was made with the Creek Indians, houses were 
erected, farms laid out and gardens planted. 
Later a settlement (Frederica) was made on 
St. Simon's Island, about sixty miles south, at 
the mouth of the Altamaha River, where was the 
outermost line of defense against the Spaniards. 
By the time the Wesleys set sail, the infant 
colony should have been well on its feet. 

It was decided that John Wesley should 
minister to the colonists at Savannah, and that 
Charles Wesley should be stationed at Frederica, 
whither went most of those who came over 
in the ship with the Wesleys. 

John records that he found seven hundred 
parishioners, who seemed to be well-disposed. 
At Frederica there were fewer people; but too 
many, considering the kind. The younger 
brother's difificulties began at once. 

Hardly had he reached the settlement when 
he was busy trying to reconcile two termagants 
who had fallen out on shipboard. They would 



THE WESLEYS IN GEORGIA. 



99 



not be friends. Soon they had the whole com- 
munity by the ears. The one thing both factions 
seem to have agreed upon was that a frank and 
courageous Christian minister would be very 
much in their way; and they undertook to 
embroil him with General Oglethorpe. 

On the third day after Wesley landed at 
Frederica, Oglethorpe snubbed and insulted him. 
On the eighth day 
Wesley's life was 
attempted by some 
unknown enemy, 
who shot at him 
while he was at 
prayer in the 
woods. 

A few days later, 
however, Charles 
Wesley and his 
patron came to an 
understanding, 
thanks chiefly to a 
confession made by one of the malcontent 
women; and thenceforth Oglethorpe and his 
secretary abode in perfect confidence. But the 
young man's health was sadly shaken by priva- 
tion and mental, strain, and in July he gladly 




CHARLES WESLEY. 



100 



THE WESLEYS IN GEORGIA. 



embraced the opportunity to return to England, 
carrying despatches from Oglethorpe to the 
trustees of Georgia and the board of trade. 

The vessel in which he embarked from Charles- 
ton was a leaky, ill-found craft, and it became 
necessary to touch at Boston to refit. 

In Boston Charles remained six weeks, sur- 
feited with hospitality, and strongly urged to set 

up his rest there. 
He sailed in an- 
other ship inOcto- 
tober, and reached 
England Decem- 
ber 3, 1736. 

Meanwhile 
troubles were 
thickening round 
John Wesley in his 
turn. Before leav- 
ing America 
Charles had writ- 
ten him a letter 
expressing an uncomplimentary opinion of two 
persons, whom he designated by Greek words. 
John dropped the letter. The person who 
picked it up read it, asked John whom the 
Greek words meant, and John, as open and 




JOHN WESLEY. 



THE WESLEYS IN GEORGIA. 101 

unsuspicious a man as ever lived, artlessly told 
him. Of course the busybody spread the tale, 
and since Charles Wesley was safely out of the 
way, the whole force of the storm fell upon the 
elder brother. 

His sorest trials came, however, through a 
Mrs. Williamson, whom he had earlier desired 
to marry. Unfortunately, she was inclined to 
be frivolous, while Mr. Wesley was strict, a born 
organizer and disciplinarian. Soon circumstances 
forced the clergyman to reprove Mrs. Williamson 
and exclude her from the communion. Magis- 
trate Causton, her uncle, took up her quarrel, 
purposing to punish him through the courts; 
although for what he had done Mr. Wesley 
maintained he was answerable to the ecclesias- 
tical authorities only, if to any. 

With acrimony his enemies pursued, with 
firmness he defended himself. Six times he 
demanded a trial on the only charge on which 
he admitted the Savannah court had a right to 
try him, that of defaming Mrs. Williamson. But 
Causton and his party, having a poor case, 
thought it safer to avoid issue, and kept on 
abusing him, to tire him out. At last he did 
give notice of his intention to sail for England, 
and then he was told he must sign a bond to 



102 



THE WESLEYS IN GEORGIA. 



appear for trial when called upon, and another 
bond to cover possible damages. 

'' I shall sign neither one nor the other," he 
answered. Then the magistrates forbade him 
to leave the province. 

He went, notwithstanding, openly, and at the 
time he had announced. This was on December 
2, 1737. He sailed 
from Charleston 
twenty days later, and 
arrived in England 
February i, 1738. It 
is interesting to note 
that on the day after 
he landed at Deal 
another famous 
preacher, George Whitefield, sailed thence, 
bound for Oglethorpe's colony. 

At a later day Mr. Wesley summed up his 
labors at Savannah in the saying that he had 
preached the gospel not as he ought, but as he 
was able. Moreover, Mr. Whitefield wrote that 
he found some serious persons, the fruits of Mr. 
Wesley's ministry. Neither utterance seems to 
sound the note of success. 

Yet John Wesley ate little, slept less, and left 
not a moment unemployed. Of a Sunday he 




JOHN WESLEY S TEAPOT. 



THE WESLEYS IN GEORGIA. 103 

took part in eight different services. Of a 
week-day, when there was absolutely nothing 
to be done for somebody else, he worked with 
his hands in his garden. For one whole year 
the expenses of himself and a student companion 
amounted to less than forty-five pounds. During 
several months of his second year in America 
he had not a shilling in his pocket. Perhaps it 
was just as well, too. If he had had money he 
would have given it away. 

That such energy and abnegation yielded so 
slight results was explained long afterward by 
one of his intimate friends: "Mr. Wesley in 
Georgia was high and deep, but not broad. 
His scrupulous exactness in things which 
seemed to others to be of little importance 
attracted notice, and mada him seem whimsical. 
This lessened the dignity of his character in 
their opinion and weakened his influence." 

Could these strong and saintly men have 
looked forward to the six million American 
Methodists of the present day, how light would 
their toils and sufferings have seemed ! 

Walter Leon Sawyer. 



COLONIAL MERRYMAKING. 

BY the year 1700 there were many planters 
in Virginia who had good horses, and 
indulged in those athletic and equestrian sports 
which their ancestors had indulged in from time 
immemorial in old England. The Virginians 
were Church of England people, who kept the 
saints' days, and kept them in the merry old style. 

Let us consider Saint Andrew's day, about the 
year 1740, in Hanover County. Two or three 
Sundays before the great day a list of the games 
to be played and the prizes to be offered would 
be posted up on the church door. 

Early in the day horsemen begin to arrive at 
the appointed field. There were scarcely any 
vehicles then in Virginia. All classes rode on 
horseback. 

In a spacious abandoned field a rude plat- 
form has been constructed, upon which are 
seated the starters, the judges, and a few of the 
magnates of the county. 

The horn sounds. The sportsmen are ready 
to begin. The starter and the judges are in 



COLONIAL MERRYMAKING. 105 

their places, and a purse containing five pounds 
is produced, and suspended in view of the crowd. 
Twenty horses, mounted by young men, and 
possibly, in some few cases, by a favorite colored 
jockey, are grouped ready for the race, to begin 
the day's sports. They are to gallop three miles, 
round a prescribed circuit, hastily indicated by 




THE HORSE-RACE. 



stakes or other familiar objects. There were few 
fences at that day to obstruct the progress of 
man or beast. 

At the signal the twenty horses bound away on 
the course, and ten or twelve minutes after, the 
winner comes panting in to receive the prize 
and the plaudits of the crowd. 

Perhaps the next entertainment would be an 
exhibition of cudgeling, a favorite sport with 
our brawny and hard-headed ancestors. 

The game of cudgeling was something like 



106 



COLONIAL MERRYMAKING. 



short-Stick fencing, the object being to give 
resounding raps upon the antagonist's head. 
After a series of cautious movements, the players 
would warm up to their work and deliver rattling 
blows with great rapidity, each good hit being 
rewarded by the vociferous applause of the 

onlookers gathered in 
a compact ring about 
them. 

A beaver hat of the 
old-fashioned cocked 
style is brought for- 
ward as the prize of the 
victorious cudgeler. 
A good beaver hat 




THE GAME OF CUDGELING. 



was a costly article 
in those days, worth as much as fifteen dollars. 

The horn sounds again to summon the gallant 
fiddlers of Hanover to a trial of their skill, the 
prize being a new violin, brought from London 
by the last ship. 

It is proposed that a violin be played for by 
twenty fiddlers, no person to have the liberty of 
playing unless he bring a fiddle with him. 

After the prize is won, the fiddlers are all to 
play together, each a different tune, and are to 
be treated by the company. 



COLONIAL MERRYMAKING. 



107 



Next, the boys are to have a turn. Twelve 
boys, twelve years of age, run a race of one 
hundred and twenty yards, the winner of which 
receives a new hat worth twelve shillings. 

At the public diversions in Virginia the song- 
singers of a county often competed for a prize, 




GIRLS, ROSY, BLUSHING AND EXPECTANT. 



such as a new song-book, or something of the 
kind, each singer in turn singing his best song 
to the company. 

Then might follow a wrestling- match for a 
prize of silver buckles, or a dancing-match for 
a pair of elegant shoes. 

The entertainments sometimes concluded with 
a diversion that excited extraordinary interest 
among the young men. A pair of silk stockings 
was exhibited on the platform, to be given to 
the prettiest girl in the field. 



108 COLONIAL MERRYMAKING. 

We can fancy the bevy of rosy girls, all drawn 
up in a line before the judges' stand, blushing 
and expectant, and the judges descending to the 
field to scrutinize more closely the charms of 
the competing damsels. 

At the close of the exercises a repast was 
served upon the field, not indeed for the whole 
crowd, but, as the program expressed it, "for 
the subscribers and their wives, and such of them 
as are not so happy as to have wives may treat 
any other lady." 

It was in some such simple and innocent way 
as this that the people of the Southern colonies 
amused themselves on days of festivity two 
hundred years ago. 

As time went on and wealth increased, the 
class of men of leisure became more numerous, 
and the coach-and-six appeared. Fox-hunting 
became fashionable. Col. George Washington 
was an ardent fox-hunter. Often he would be 
out three times a week, and sometimes chased a 
fox all day, only to lose him at last. 

We see also in the diary of Washington how 
regularly he and his wife attended the grand 
balls given every winter at Alexandria. 

Of the Northern colonies, Pennsylvania was by 
far the wealthiest at the middle of the eighteenth 



COLONIAL MERRYMAKING. 109 

century. The jolly diversions of Virginia were 
not in favor in the Quaker commonwealth, 
where social gatherings appear to have been 
the chief pleasures. 

An old chronicler reports that the wedding 
feasts of Philadelphia were enormous. The 
house of the bride's parents would be filled 
with company to dine, all of whom would be 
invited to stay to tea and to a late supper in the 
evening. For two days punch was dealt out to 
all callers, and every gentleman, even if as 
many as a hundred a day called, had the privi- 
lege of kissing the bride. 

In New England, besides the rustic corn- 
huskings, quilting -bees and house -raisings, 
there was really but one festival which can be 
looked back upon with pleasure and approval, 
namely. Thanksgiving, which has been truly 
styled the Puritan. Christmas. 

This was observed in the eighteenth century 
very much as it is in this, by the return of absent 
members of the family to their home, by feasting 
and unbounded merriment. 

James Parton. 



WASHINGTON AT BELVOIR. 

LJ OW may one better appeal for interest in the 
^ ^ long-deserted and half-forgotten Virginia 
home, situated some four miles below Mount 
Vernon on a noble bluff overhanging the Poto- 
mac River, and now overgrown by trees and 
vines, than by quoting the words of Washington 
himself concerning it: "The happiest moments 
of my life had been spent there." 

The first owner and founder of Belvoir was 
William Fairfax, a Yorkshireman, cadet of the 
house of fighting Fairfaxes. He came to Vir- 
ginia as collector of the king's customs, and 
agent for the immense estates of his first cousin, 
the sixth Lord Fairfax of Green way Court. He 
became president of the Virginia Council, was 
for that reason called ''colonel," and ended his 
life on the Virginia hillside where he now lies. 

It was to the household of this accomplished 
and kindly gentleman that the schoolboy 
George, recendy a pupil of Mr. Williams's 
school at Wakefield, was introduced by his 
brother Lawrence, whom he had come to 
visit at Mount Vernon. 

Now such a '' visit " might last three days, three 



WASHINGTON AT BELVOIR. Ill 

weeks, or if sufficiently enjoyable, three months, 
without stretching the welcome of one's hosts. 

George's brother Lawrence had married 
Colonel Fairfax's charming daughter Anne, who 
made things most agreeable at Mount Vernon. 
There was a perpetual ex- 
change of dinings and tea- 
drinkings between Mount 
Vernon and Belvoir. At 
stated intervals all the gentle- 
men of the county met at 
one place or the other for a 
fox-hunt breakfast. 

The colonel, Lawrence's ^^orge Washington. 

r 1 » 1 -I • ^'"ST PORTRAIT BY C. W. PEALE. 

lather - m - law, took an im- 
mense fancy to young George, whom he early 
began to entertain and instruct in the art of 
war by recitals of his own adventures. And 
last, perhaps not least, there were always some 
nice girls stopping at Belvoir ! 

What wonder that George's visit to Lawrence 
and Anne extended indefinitely; that Mount 
Vernon and Belvoir both became homes to him ! 

We may safely picture him at this time of life 
as shy, awkward, somewhat gawky, presenting 
few suggestions of the '' imperial man," as Lowell 
calls him, he afterward became. 




J12 WASHINGTON AT BELVOIR. 

His clothes were homespun, and no doubt he 
carried in the pocket of his country-made suit 
that historic penknife one may see in the Masonic 
Lodge of Alexandria. It was presented to him 
by his mother when he was twelve years old, 
and was carried constantly for fifty-six years. 

The State Department at Washington contains 
a great number of letters passing between Col. 
William Fairfax and Washington. All of these 
show on the old soldier's part a keen and 
fatherly interest in the younger one's career, 
and are responded to by Washington with almost 
filial respect and affection. 

But it was the oldest of the Belvoir boys, 
George William Fairfax, with whom Washington 
formed one of the closest friendships of his 
life. This young man, some years older than 
Washington, was handsome, dashing and ac- 
complished, and like his brothers, had been 
educated in England. Together the two Georges 
spent many of the happy hours of youth. 

When old Lord Fairfax of Greenway Court 
gave Washington, at sixteen, his first chance to 
earn money by surveying my lord's lands in the 
pathless wilderness of what is now West Virginia, 
George Fairfax offered to accompany his friend. 

Together they rode through Ashly's Gap in 



WASHINGTON AT BELVOIR. 



113 



the Blue Ridge mountains, and roamed and 
camped for weeks in happy fellowship, a descrip- 
tion of which adventure may be read in full in 
Irving's life of Washington. 

The two Georges in their youth did not spend 
all their days in sport and travel. Side by side 




BELVOIR ON THE POTOMAC. 



they went into the political contests of the 
county. There is a story current in Alexandria 
of how, on one occasion, Washington backed 
up Fairfax in a hot contest for a seat in the 
House of Burgesses against Mr. Payne, after- 
ward a colonel in the Continental army. 

Payne took violent offense, and attacking 
Washington suddenly, took him off his guard 



114 WASHINGTON AT BELVOIR. 

and knocked him down. This occurred in the 
market-place of Alexandria, and the next day, 
while the town was ringing with talk of the 
challenge to fight a duel, which Washington, 
according to the custom of the day, must inevi- 
tably send Payne, the assailant received, instead 
of a challenge to fight, a note from Washington 
so full of magnanimity and forbearance as to 
make Payne forever after his devoted friend and 
champion. Colonel Payne was, in fact, one of 
those appointed at the funeral of Washington to 
carry his body to the tomb. 

Perhaps the most interesting phase of the 
friendship of the two Georges was that during 
the oncoming of the Revolutionary War, while 
Washington was slowly but surely taking his 
place as one of the guiding spirits of the move- 
ment toward disruption from the mother country, 
George Fairfax was as steadfastly holding to 
his conviction that such a movement was wrong 
and mischievous. 

In spite of this burning difference, their rela- 
tions did not alter. They discussed the question 
personally and by letter, from every standpoint, 
each listening respectfully to the other' s views, and 
each ending as firm as before in his own opinion. 

It was to George Fairfax that Washington 



WASHINGTON AT BELVOIR. 



115 



gave utterance to that noble cry of feeling about 

the coming conflict: 

"Unhappy it is to reflect that a brother's 

sword has been sheathed in a brother's breast, 

and that the once happy and peaceful plains of 

America are to be either drenched with blood 

or inhabited by slaves. Sad alternative! But 

can a virtuous man 

hesitate in his choice?" 
George Fairfax sailed 

finally for England, 

passing the famous " tea 
ships" coming into 
Boston harbor, and in 
England the conscien- 
tious Tory thereafter 
lived and died. 

During his absence 
at this time Washington George wiluam fmrfax. 

charged himself with 

the care of Belvoir, and the various affairs 
relating to his friend's Virginia estate. Fairfax's 
death was a blow to him, and their correspond- 
ence up to that moment shows no diminution 
of a lifelong confidence and love. 

Mrs. Burton Harrison. 




THE RESCUE. 

IT was that disastrous July, 1755, in which the 
colonies of Virginia and Maryland passed 
through one of the most cruel periods of their 
history. General Braddock's advance-guard had 
marched blindly into the ambush on the banks 
of the Monongahela contrived for them by an 
enemy ignorantly despised ; and it was twelve 
hours since Colonel Dunbar, yielding to the 
panic, had ordered a retreat. 

Slowly the routed army trailed along the rough 
road they had made a week ago. The Indians 
and their French allies hung about the retreat, 
following through the close-growing underbrush. 

To provide transport for the many wounded, 
Dunbar had abandoned ammunition and provi- 
sions. But the wagons thus secured were so 
crowded, the July heat and the feverish thirst 
were so unendurable, that the sturdiest sufferers 
became delirious. 

The guarding of these wounded had been 
assigned to the unhurt survivors of the advance- 
guard, who surrounded the wagons ; and among 
them marched a boy of sixteen. 



THE RESCUE. 117 

Nicholas had not a scratch after the horrors 
of that battle, but when the hot afternoon 
waned into a yet hotter twilight, and the excite- 
ment of danger dulled with the ceasing of the 
occasional shots, he grew so tired that defeat, 
dishonor, death appeared less dreadful than his 
intolerable longing for sleep. 

A young officer marching beside him, tall, 
stalwart and handsome, cheered him from time 
to time, and once in a hard scramble up a hill, 
crying, ''Here, comrade, a hand!" shouldered 
the weary boy's musket, put his arm about 
Nicholas's waist, and helped him over the rough 
places. Nicholas answered with a grateful look 
and word. This was the man of all the company 
that in his boyish way he most admired. That 
his admiration was well-founded he learned with 
pride in after years. The young officer was 
George Washington. 

Had Washington remained by the boy's side, 
Nicholas would probably have escaped the com- 
plications that ensued; but the young officer 
soon went forward to urge on another detach- 
ment in the weary retreat. 

A few moments later a figure scrambled over 
the back of the wagon just ahead of Nicholas, 
staggered, and fled into the underbrush, 



118 THE RESCUE. 

At sight of that blood-stained runaway, 
Nicholas halted abruptly, for he could not let 
Lawrence Fairfax, his employer's son, wounded 
and raving, rush upon certain destruction. 

"I must bring that fellow back! He is a 
neighbor at home ! " he shouted, and made off 
into the forest. ''Til overtake him quickly," he 
assured himself. ''He cannot go far!" But 
when he came upon Lawrence's senseless body, 
he asked himself an anxious question. 

Lawrence was taller and heavier than he. 
To carry him would be impossible. If this faint 
lasted long, as seemed likely, would not the 
Indians find them? Nicholas stared round 
nervously, his hands clenched, his heart beating 
fast at the sound of muttering voices, which proved 
to be only the murmur of a stream close by. 

He bent over the white face in sympathy, for 
he, too, was thirsty, and he guessed what tor- 
ment had forced the delirious youth desper- 
ately to seek relief. A few steps and he was 
beside the stream, swallowing delicious drafts. 
But he was quickly with Lawrence again, pouring 
water from his wide felt hat on the white face, 
and pressing his drenched handkerchief on the^ 
close-shut lips of the unconscious youth. 

Slow work it was reviving him, yet at last 



THE RESCUE. 



119 



Lawrence's eyes stared up with recognition in 
them. " What is it, Nick ? Did Ladybird throw 
me? I must be sore hurt to make thee look so 
gently on me." 

With a dozen words Nicholas brought him to 
remembrance of the incidents just passed. 




BRADDOCK S DEFEAT. 



FROM THE PAINTING 



"Thou hast risked thy life for me!" he mur- 
mured, struggling to his elbow. " We must start 
after Dunbar at once, or we shall lose him." 

This was quite Nicholas's opinion, but it was 
an opinion not easy to put into action. For 
although Lawrence got to his feet and stumbled 
a few yards, he collapsed then, slipping through 
Nicholas's hold to the ground. 



120 THE RESCUE. 

" I'm too shaky to stand! " he gasped. *' Go 
on, Nick. I'm thankful to thee, but I'll not be 
responsible for thy scalping." 

*'I shall not leave thee," Nicholas said. ''I 
dare say if thou canst sleep for an hour we may 
overtake the rear-guard at the first halt." 

"What of the Indians?" Lawrence asked. 

'* Likely the Indians are tired as well as we," 
said Nicholas. " Perchance they will take this 
night for a good rest." 

'' Nick," Lawrence murmured, *' I have not 
deserved that thou — " His voice failed, his 
eyes closed, and he fainted again. 

Of the night which followed Nicholas would 
never willingly speak. It seemed years long in 
the passing, and crowded with fears and fatigues. 
But all that night there was neither sight nor 
sound of Indians, and at last, toward dawn, both 
boys slept so profoundly that the noon sunshine 
woke them by glinting in their eyes. 

Luckily, they were used to the rough tramps, 
and they set out hopefully to seek Dunbar's 
forces. Patiently they tacked in many direc- 
tions, but the road remained lost to them in the 
bewildering mazes of the forest. Glad enough 
they were at the end of two hours to cross the 
course of their stream once more. 



THE RESCUE. 121 

Lawrence, who was feverish and exhausted, 
refused to go farther from its cool waters. He 
lay tossing and muttering home names. 

At last, as twilight darkened about them, it 
was Lawrence who roused Nicholas. 

" It is cooler. We must go on ! " 

''Whither shall we go?" asked Nicholas. 

"Wherever our friendly stream may lead us," 
said Lawrence; ''for we shall never overtake 
Dunbar now, and we may find some settler." 

They had not wandered a mile, however, 
when they stumbled upon a trail, but recently 
broken into wagon ruts. Ten minutes more 
and they came to a clearing, which surrounded 
a large corn-field and a log cabin. 

Lawrence flung his arms about Nicholas. 
"Thou art saved?" he gasped. "Tell my 
mother that I — " 

Nicholas laid him, limp and senseless, on the 
ground, and dashed across the clearing. The 
cabin was fast closed, but that proved occupa- 
tion rather than desertion in those times of con- 
stant danger. 

A flash from a loophole beside the door and 
a bullet whizzing close to his head sent Nicholas 
dodging to his knees. 

"Help!" he shouted. "Spare your shot! 



122 THE RESCUE. 

We are two Virginians from Braddock's army!" 

Silence followed. Nicholas, crouching below 
the level of the loophole, dared not rise or draw 
nearer the cabin. 

*' Help ! " he cried again. " My comrade has 
swooned from his wound — and may die while 
you delay ! " 

A woman's voice answered him after a moment. 
*'Lay down your musket and approach!" 

Nicholas stood up and stepped close to the 
loophole. Then the woman spoke again : " You 
are a lad — and your companion?" 

''So sore wounded he could not hurt you 
were he a giant. But we are both soldiers from 
the troops which passed not far away last night." 

The door was flung open. A young woman, 
stern and care-worn in her comeliness, stood 
upon the threshold with a musket in one hand, 
the other thrusting back a tiny child. 

''You are too young to be very wicked, and 
the danger which threatens us threatens you," 
she said, slowly. "We are the 'widow and the 
fatherless,' who share with you such shelter as 
we have, for so long or so short a time as the 
Lord God decides." 

Then the two stepped swiftly to the side of 
Lawrence, lying long and still in the moonlight. 



THE RESCUE. 123 

''We will get him to bed," the woman said; 
and the next instant she was carrying the greater 
share of his weight, although Nicholas did his 
exhausted utmost to aid. 

Inside the cabin a large room, with a wide 
chimney in the midst, was dimly shown by the 
light of a single guttering candle, and Lawrence 
was laid on a bed at the farther side of it. 

" Refresh yourself with milk and corn bread 
from the cupboard, while I tend your comrade," 
she bade Nicholas. 

When he returned at last to the bedside, 
Lawrence, revived, rebandaged, and clad in a 
clean shirt, smiled complete contentment at 
sight of him. 

"We have found an angel to care for me," he 
murmured. " But to praise Mistress Mowbray's 
care is no slur to thine. He would have been 
close to Cumberland with Dunbar's troops by 
this time, but he stayed to defend me when I 
ran mad in the forest," he added to their hostess. 

" He may have to defend more than you, sir, 
presently," she said, gravely. "An Indian skulked 
about the clearing just after sunset. So please 
you sleep, and let him sleep while there is quiet." 

The tired boy slept so soundly that five hours 
later a vigorous shaking was required to rouse him. 




A NAKED SAVAGE SPRANG INTO THE ROOM. 



THE RESCUE. 125 

*' Indians!" he cried, feeling for his musket. 

*'Aye, Indians outside," said Mrs. Mowbray. 

" I'm ready," said Nicholas, quietly. 

" Take this loophole by the back door. I'll take 
the front. There are half a dozen on this side, 
along the edge of the clearing. What see you ?" 

Nicholas at first saw nothing, but as his eyes 
grew used to the dim dawn he perceived creeping 
figures close to the cabin. His answer was to 
aim deliberately and fire. 

"I doubt I did not kill him!" he grumbled. 
"Can you shoot straight, mistress?" 

Her musket answered promptly, and through 
the yells which followed she announced calmly 
that they had one enemy the less. 

But the savages were equally good marksmen, 
and provided with the best weapons of that 
generation by their French allies. 

A ball struck the frame of Nicholas's loophole. 
A second flew through the other loophole, tear- 
ing Mistress Mowbray's cap, and a third hit the 
wall above a trundle-bed, where the elder child 
sat up with a scream of fright. 

"Thou art not hurt, my sweet!" his mother 
cried, deserting her post to fondle him and drag 
the bed into a more sheltered position. " Lie 
still, as thy mammy bids thee." 



126 THE RESCUE. 

** Stay with your children, mistress. I will 
defend your loophole!" Lawrence exclaimed, 
awake at last and springing from the bed. 

''Your hand is not steady and we have no 
powder or ball to spare," she answered firmly, 
as she took down two more muskets from the 
chimney. ''These are ready for use, and you 
shall reload the others while we empty them." 

A curious sound of scrambling made itself 
heard at a side of the cabin invisible from either 
loophole ; and the woman guessed its meaning. 
*'They are climbing to the roof by the lean-to, 
where the beasts are stalled !" she cried. 'They 
will come upon us by the chimney, for there is 
no fire in it." 

"There shall be a fire before they reach it!" 
Lawrence declared, giving her a reloaded 
musket. He dragged two huge feather mat- 
tresses from the bed, slashed them open, and 
flinging them upon the wide hearth, touched a 
fiaring candle to their contents in a dozen 
places, whence at each touch smoke and fiame 
rushed up the chimney. 

None too soon ! For as the blaze gathered 
its first fierceness a naked savage, already half- 
down the chimney, pushed through the flames, 
and sprang spluttering into the room. 



THE RESCUE. 127 

*' Back to your loopholes !" Lawrence shouted, 
as Nicholas and Mistress Mowbray ran to his 
help; and snatching up a log, he felled the 
dazed Indian at a blow. 

The feather beds burned furiously, and their 
suffocating smoke blocked the chimney as 
effectively as their flames, which Lawrence fed 
presently with the mattress on which Nicholas 
had slept, and the pallet from the trundle-bed 
whence Mistress Mowbray caught her children. 
Then he added logs from the wood-pile. 

During ten minutes more, while the fire raged, 
the defenders listened to the trampling of heavy 
feet on the roof, and to yells of baffled fury. 

Then Nicholas, at his loophole, shouted, 
"They are going!" 

Shouting and shooting a futile defiance when 
they reached the edge of the clearing, they 
vanished — leaving a great stillness. 

Then Lawrence sank down beside the chim- 
ney, his shirt drenched with blood from his 
wound. The bandages had been loosened by 
his exertions. Deftly Mistress Mowbray cared 
for him, while Nicholas moved from one loop- 
hole to the other. 

Two -hours later Nicholas, a bucket in one 
hand, his musket in the other, had gone to the 



128 THE RESCUE. 

Stream. There he heard cautious footsteps 
through the underbrush. 

Then an anxious white face peered from the 
thicket. Shouting, " A friend ! " Nicholas sprang 
to meet the newcomer, the neighbor whose help 
had been promised to Mistress Mowbray when 
her corn-field was ready to harvest. 

This man, Jacob Brown, with his family and 
that of a near-by settler, had started for Fort 
Cumberland, intending to seek Mistress Mow- 
bray on the road. 

Within a half-hour they were all off together. 
Mistress Mowbray and her babies crowded with 
the other women and children into one wagon, 
before which rode Lawrence and one of the 
settlers, while Brown, Nicholas, and a couple of 
boys younger than himself brought up the rear. 

Nicholas and Lawrence and their companions 
made their way without further adventure. At 
Fort Cumberland the two lads were welcomed 
by their comrades of Dunbar's troops as if risen 
from the dead. 

Ellen Mackubin. 



THE COLONIES ALERT. 



lldi' 




m:mAL. . .„ ,,iiiliii ;ir J.MJ:,,,:,,.,, / '„■ ii^5\/„,^i 

GLANCING AT UOROTHY's UPTURNED LISTENING FACE. 



TWO HISTORIC LANDMARKS. 

THE tourist, travelling along the northern 
shore of Portsmouth harbor in the electric 
car that runs to York, passes through one of 
the most ancient parishes in the country. At a 
sharp bend in the road, facing the waters of 
the lower harbor, stands the Kittery Congre- 
gational Meeting - House, the oldest church 
building in Maine. 

Here worshiped Sir William Pepperrell, the 
hero of Louisburg, and the only American ever 
knighted by the English crown. Whoever 
attends the communion service in this church 
receives the Lord's Supper from a service that 
has been in use since Pepperrell' s day. Upon 
the big two-handled silver cups are inscribed 
these words : 

The Gift of the 

Hon'ble Wm. Pepperrell Esqr. 

To the First Church of Christ in Kittery, 

1733- 

'' Hon'ble Wm. Pepperrell Esqr." was the 

father of the baronet. The gift was made in 

the form of a bequest to the parish. 

About a hundred feet to the rear of the 



132 



TWO HISTORIC LANDMARKS. 



church building is the ancient parsonage, built 
in 1729. During a visit in Portsmouth, George 
Washington one day dropped down the harbor 
to Kittery Point, made his way up across the 
parish green to this very house, and called upon 
Dr. Benjamin Stevens, a graduate of Harvard, the 
faithful minister for forty years at Kittery Point. 
Within this old house is an interesting old 
library. Many of the books were Pepperrell's. 
Volume after volume contains the Pepperrell 
coat of arms and the baronet's 
autograph. Sir William be- 
queathed the collection to 
Doctor Stevens. 

At that time there was no 
library like it for miles around. 
For a time the books were 
kept alternately at Kittery and 
York, and were used as a 
circulating library; 
but they gradually fell 
o0l^^' into disuse, and at last 
'// were left permanently 

in the Kittery Point parish, where they logically 
belong. They are simply heirlooms and curi- 
osities now. On the fly-leaf of one of the 
bulkiest of the volumes is the name Joshua 




TWO HISTORIC LANDMARKS. 



133 



Moody. This is of particular interest, because 
it is the autograph of the first minister of the 
first church in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In 
1684 Mr. Moody was honored by an invitation 
to the presidency of 
Harvard College, but 
declined the call. 
Eight years afterward, 
in 1692, he was im- 
prisoned by command 
of the lieutenant- 
governor, and later 
banished from the 




provmce. 



THE KITTERV MEETING-HOUSE. 



The twelfth name in the first column of the 
signers of the Declaration of Independence 
is that of William Whipple. In his public life 
as a patriot and a distinguished citizen, Mr. 
Whipple hailed from New Hampshire. He was 
a merchant in Portsmouth; a member of the 
New Hampshire Provincial Congress ; one of 
New Hampshire's representatives in the memo- 
rable Continental Congress of 1776 ; a brigadier- 
general of New Hampshire troops; and after 
the Revolution a judge of the Superior Court 
in the Granite State. 



134 TWO HISTORIC LANDMARKS. 

He was born in Kittery, Maine, January 14, 

1730, in a dwelling even then of historical note. 

In earlier days it had been a garrison-house, 

many times unsuccessfully attacked by the 

Indians. It is in a sightly location on the edge 

of the water, close by a 

portion of the harbor known 

as Whipple Cove. The front 

of the house looks as it did 

in General Whipple's time. 

The room in which he was 

born is a sunny chamber, 

with great hewn timbers in 

the corners and overhead. 

^/T^^yy^-^U The neatly painted floor is 

made of boards almost two 

feet wide. Over the bed in the room is a 

patchwork comforter made of bits from the 

dresses of famous American women. One piece, 

a shade of buff, came from a gown of Lady 

Washington. 

Although the Whipple furniture disappeared 
long ago, many antiquities have replaced it. 
Comb -back chairs, old mahogany tables, an 
ancient melodeon and other time-honored things 
are seen on all sides. 

William Whipple early followed the sea, going 




TWO HISTORIC LANDMARKS. 



135 



out from Kittery and becoming captain of a 
merchantman before he was twenty-one years 
old. He traded in the West Indies, and made 
voyages to Africa for slaves. Some of these he 
kept in the Kittery household. One, named 
Dustin, was buried on the Whipple farm by the 
side of a tiny body of water, which has since 
been known as Dustin Pond. 

Prince, another negro brought from Africa, 
was for long years a faithful servant in the 
general's home. According to tradition, he 
attended his master on the expedition against 
Burgoyne. When 
Prince was told 
that he would be 
expected to be- 
have courageous- 
ly and fight 
bravely, should 
the soldiers be 
called into action, 
he replied, "Sir, I have no inducement to 
fight ; but if I had my liberty, I would endeavor 
to defend it to the last drop of my blood." 
General Whipple immediately freed the slave. 

Clarence P. Emery. 




THE BIRTHPLACE OF WM. WHIPPI 



ELIZABETH'S CHOICE. 

T^HE parish of St. Andrew, like other loyal 
-*■ parishes in the province of South Carolina, 
was in a flutter of pleasant anticipation on the 
afternoon of November 9, 1753. Preparations 
were everywhere in hand for the celebration, on 
the morrow, of the birthday of His Majesty, 
George II, King of England and of the North 
American colonies. 

At Charlton Manor, an added note of excite- 
ment lay in the fact that on the morrow, also, 
young Christopher, the only son of Squire 
Christopher Charlton, would attain his majority. 

All day a swarm of negro servants, under the 
direction of Mistress Elizabeth Charlton, had 
been busy hanging garlands of evergreen, 
goldenrod and autumn leaves upon the walls, 
waxing and polishing the floors of the great 
hall, decking the dozen or more guest-chambers, 
and furbishing silver, brass and pewter, against 
Master Kit's birthday ball, to which the whole 
countryside was bidden. 

A little before sunset Mistress Elizabeth came 
out upon the white - pillared front piazza of 
the manor house, a stately building with wide 



ELIZABETH'S CHOICE. 137 



galleries, dormered roofs and square chimneys, 
which stood on slightly rising ground that 
sloped gently down to the Ashley River. 

The girl could see, across the house yard with 
its embowering trees and vine-hung summer- 
houses, the wide stream and the great deer park 
beyond it, flanked with apple and peach orchards. 
As she stood looking about her a hand plucked 
at her dress. 

'' Vulcan ! " she cried. '' What do you want ? " 

The intruder, a ten-year-old boy, black and 
solemn, hung his head as he replied, '' Hit's 
mammy agin, liT miss. She tuk bad wid fever." 

Betty immediately started along the familiar 
way to the quarters. It was the duty of every 
mistress of a plantation to look personally after 
sick slaves, carrying medicines, unguents and 
brews, oftentimes to take upon herself literally 
the offices of both surgeon and nurse. 

The girl's pretty face grew sober as she stepped 
into the whitewashed cabin and approached the 
bed whereon Vulcan's mother lay stretched, with 
closed eyes and tossing arms. 

"Juno?" she queried, gently. 

The woman, tall and majestic-looking, sat up, 
her ebon face lighting with pleasure. 

"LiT miss!" she breathed, in an ecstasy. 



138 ELIZABETH'S CHOICE. 

Then a torrent of words poured from her 
parched lips. Betty, listening intelligently, put 
the uncouth jargon into English to herself. 

"Little mistress," said Juno, "I want to buy 
my freedom. Old marster is a good marster. 
He takes care of his black people. They do 
not mind being slaves, those others. What 
were they but slaves in Africa ? Some of them 
were even my own slaves ! But I am not like 
them. I have not the heart of a slave. I have 
a good home, but I am proud. I want to be 
free once more before I die. I am not afraid to 
work. I will work from sunrise to sunset for 
old marster; and I will work to buy myself and 
my boy. It will take a long time, but I will not 
die until I can die free. A princess should not 
be a slave, little mistress. But I, the Princess 
Matsoo-la, have been a slave for ten years. 
You know! " 

Yes, Elizabeth knew. Her own eyes over- 
flowed as she went back to the orreat house. 
There the state coach, drawn by four gray 
horses, waited at the front piazza. The squire, 
bound for a rout at a neighboring plantation, 
had his foot already on the carriage step. He 
greeted his pretty daughter affectionately. 

''And mind, Betty," he concluded, "you are to 



ELIZABETH'S CHOiCE. 139 

keep these roses fresh for Kit's ball." He tapped 
her cheek with a gay forefinger and turned to go. 

'' Papa," she clutched at his lace ruffles, "wait, 
please! I — I want to speak to you." 

''Well, minx, what bauble is it? Brooch? 
Bracelet? Belt-buckle — " 

"Papa," she broke in, desperately, "I — I — 
Juno wants to buy her freedom — " 

" Elizabeth!" Ah, now Betty knew the squire 
was angry! "I have forbidden you to speak 
to me of Juno. Attend you to your own affairs, 
girl, and I will attend to mine." He stepped 
into the coach, and was driven rapidly away. 

" O dear! " sobbed Mistress Elizabeth, feeling 
very unlike the lady of a manor. But her tears 
were checked by the appearance of Mr. Hugh 
Posthlewaite, her brother's tutor. 

" Mistress Elizabeth," the old gentleman began 
with courtly deliberation, " Master Christopher 
hath broken his arm and desires your pres- 
ence — " But Betty was half-way up the stair. 

" 'Tis a trifle and the bones are set," said Kit. 
" Twas not the fault of Juniper Third. I 
deserved the tumble I got for being off my 
guard when he shied. Don't go a-crying, sis. 
I shall be able to drink the royal health to-morrow 
night, and shall step the minuet without tripping ! 



140 



ELIZABETH'S CHOICE. 



But, O Betty," he groaned, " 'tis my bridle 
arm, and — and knocks Juniper out of the race! " 
"Kit!" ejaculated Betty, horrified. 
"Father has not heard yet; his heart is set 
on Juniper Third winning the cup ! " 

"Is there no one — " 

"Not a soul in St. 

Andrew's parish could 

ride Juniper — except 

Francis Marion — " 

"The plowboy!" 
sniffed Mr. Posthlewaite. 
" Plowboy or no, 
Francis Marion is the 
finest gentleman I know, 
after my father — saving 
your presence, Mr. 
Posthlewaite. But he has 
entered his mare Cherokee for the race," con- 
cluded the lad, and lapsed into brooding silence. 
"Cup or no cup, you will be sailing for 
England on the Well Wisher next week. Lucky 
Kit ! " and Betty sighed, for England, that unseen, 
far-away, wonderful home of her father's people, 
was the goal of her sleeping and waking dreams. 
The St. Andrew's race-course presented an 
animated spectacle the next afternoon. There 




GEN. FRANCIS MARION. 



ELIZABETH'S CHOICE. 141 



had been during the morning many contests, 
for the royal birthday had brought together 
wresders, boxers, runners, fiddlers, dancers and 
ballad-singers from all over the parish. Now 
the huge crowd swarmed from the eating-booths 
to see the gentleman's race. 

A pang darted through Kit Charlton's heart 
as he saw the horses coming up from the sheds. 
Suddenly his keen eye detected among them the 
graceful, upthrown head of Juniper Third. His 
own body-servant, Jerry, was leading the beauti- 
ful, silken-coated bay. The squire had also 
seen. He sprang up, roaring, '*What do you 
mean, you black rascal! Take that horse 
home instantly, or I'll — " 

" Stay where you are, Jerry! " The interrup- 
tion came from Mistress Elizabeth Charlton, 
who stepped forth from a bevy of young women. 
'' If you please. Squire Charlton," she continued, 
lifting a rosy face to the astonished judges, 
" I am going to ride Juniper Third." 

Kit started forward; the squire stared down 
at his daughter with a frown, which changed 
presently to a broad grin. He slapped his knee 
with a delighted hand. "The girl can do it! 
Bring in Juniper Third for the cup, Betty, and 
you shall have anything you ask for." 



142 ELIZABETH'S CHOICE. 

There were six entries for the race — four of 
the gentlemen riders boasting the bluest blood 
of the province in their veins. But whose blood 
was bluer than Betty's own ? When the fifth 
rider drew his horse, a dainty, slender-limbed 
black mare, alongside Juniper Third, Betty cried 
gaily, ''A fair field and no favor, Mr. Marion!" 

For the fifth rider was that Francis Marion of 
whom Mr. Posthlewaite had spoken so contemp- 
tuously. The man to be one day so famous 
in the Indian and Revolutionary wars of his 
country, the " Swamp Fox" of future history, was 
at this time just turned twenty-one. His rather 
delicate face, with its open brow, sensitive mouth 
and deep, luminous eyes, was of a winsomeness 
which has passed into a proverb — '' perfect ideal 
of a true knight and Christian gentleman." 

" Have a care. Mistress Elizabeth," he urged. 
"Juniper has a wayward temper." 

''Don't ride, Betty!" implored Kit, pressing 
to the edge of the track. 

Betty's answer to both was a firmer grasp on her 
bridle-rein, for just then the signal was given. 

Squire Charlton stood up, wondering what 
madness had possessed him to permit a thing 
so beyond reason, and praying that Betty might 
come to no harm. Kit, mounted on a shed, 



ELIZABETH'S CHOICE. 143 

followed with sparkling eyes her cap and feather 
whirling round the track. 

He saw Juniper draw ahead of all competitors 
except Marion's Cherokee. He cheered lustily. 
But all at once he gasped. The whitewashed 
post at the three-quarter turn, where Juniper had 
shied the day before ! If he should shy again ! 

But alarm had not caught him only ; Marion, 
leading the race by a full length, had seen the 
post ahead, staring white. 

Quick as thought he dropped back and seized 
Betty's bridle just as the flying animal stiffened 
for a sidewise spring. Juniper was steadied under 
his powerful grasp, then, released, leaped on 
reassured. Betty, gazing straight ahead, re- 
mained unconscious alike of danger and of the 
steadying hand. 

Thus, say the old Carolina chronicles, Francis 
Marion saved a life and lost a race. For the 
slender nose of Juniper Third shot under the 
rope, neck and shoulders ahead of Cherokee. 

A wild burst of applause greeted the winner 
of the race as she flew on, then turned and drew 
bridle in front of the judges' stand. 

The squire, relieved of self-reproach, shouted 
his throat hoarse in triumph, and when Betty, 
dropping from- the saddle, stood courtesying 



144 ELIZABETH'S CHOICE. 

before him he took the parish to witness that 
the girl should have anything she wanted, short 
of Charlton Manor itself! 

"You will choose to-night after the royal 
health," he said, looking fondly down at her. 

''And you will choose England," said Marion. 

"England? Yes, oh, yes!" she cried. 

" I feared Juniper might shy where I got my 
tumble," said Kit, still thinking of the risk. 

"Why, no!" Betty returned, not knowing un- 
til long afterward why Juniper did not shy. 

The state dinner over that night, the guests 
assembled in the great hall. Here was a bril- 
liant throng — county magnates, city dignita- 
ries, for many of these had driven over from 
Charleston, stately dames, powdered gallants and 
gay spinsters. The immense hall was lighted 
by innumerable candles made from the wax 
berry. At one end of the room the squire 
was seated in an armchair in semiroyal state. 
He held aloft the great Charlton drinking-horn 
handed down from a remote ancestor. Serving- 
men, passing in and out among the guests with 
tankard and decanter, had charged all goblets. 

The squire rose, and in a loud voice gave 
"His Majesty, the King!" which was drunk in 



ELIZABETH'S CHOICE. 145 

a respectful silence. "The health of His Excel- 
lency, the Governor of South Carolina," pro- 
ceeded the squire, loyally. 

" Ladies and gentlemen," said Colonel Ludwell 
of the Royal Dragoons, " I give you the health of 
Master Christopher Charlton, born by good luck 
on the forty-ninth anni- 
versary of his blessed 
majesty." 

Thereupon there was 
a rousing cheer for Kit, 
very brave and hand- 
some in his silk coat, 
flowered waistcoat, pow- 
der, ribbons and lace. 

The squire reseated 
himself, and beckoned 
with his hand to Betty, 
who stood at the lower king george n. 

end of the hall, surrounded by an eager circle. 
Her blue eyes were shining, but her mouth 
quivered as she stepped forward and bent low 
before her father ; she opened her lips to speak, 
but the squire forestalled her. 

" No need to ask, my little jockey," he laughed. 
"I know right well what 'tis you long for." 

He took a folded paper from his breast pocket 




146 ELIZABETH'S CHOICE. 

and handed it to her. She unfolded the official- 
looking document mechanically. It was, as she 
expected, a playfully worded 

Leave of Absence for Mistress Elizabeth Charlton for 
One Year from Charlton Manor ; said Year to be spent in 
England. In Token of the Winning of a Cup by Riding 
Juniper Third. And for faithful service on said Manor. 
(Signed) Christopher Charlton. 

The girl's eyes filled as she read, her lips 
trembled, the color forsook her cheek. 

"Your honor," she said, refolding the paper, 
"if I might choose — " 

"What!" interrupted the squire, vexed and 
amazed. " Do you mean to say — " 

"If I might choose," repeated Betty, in a 
steady voice. 

The squire reached out for the paper, and 
tore it into bits. "You can choose, of course, 
for my word is passed. But whatever you 
choose, you get that and that only." 

"I know, your honor," said Betty, and her 
head went up proudly, like to the squire's own. 

"Well ? " said the squire. The guests pressed 
forward, curious to hear. 

"I will have," said Betty, "the freedom of 
the slave woman, Juno." 

Absolute silence reigned in the great hall. 




you ARE A QOOD CHILD, ELIZABETH. 



148 ELIZABETH'S CHOICE. 

The girl, from under her long- lashes, stole a 
glance around. On the faces of most of those 
present she read surprise or incredulity; some 
expressed amusement, two or three indulgent 
contempt. Kit's frightened eyes were fastened 
on his father's face. But one pair of luminous 
eyes, from an obscure corner, shone approval 
and strengthened her courage. 

As for the squire, his face had gone from 
crimson to purple; his lips tightened as if to 
keep back the rage that surged up, demanding 
speech. But his brow gradually cleared, his 
eyes softened ; he turned to Mr. Posthlewaite, 
who stood near, and said in a loud tone : 

"You will see that notice is given at once to 
the governor and council of my intention to 
manumit my slave woman called Juno — " 

" O father ! " cried Betty. 

''And her son, known as Vulcan." 

Betty sank involuntarily on her knees. Her 
father lifted her gently. " You are a good 
child, Elizabeth," he said, solemnly, laying his 
hand on her shoulder. 

There was a great clapping of hands, provoked 
more, it must be confessed, by the girl's wonder- 
ful beauty, than by her act of self-sacrifice. 

The fiddlers were tuning for the minuet; and 



ELIZABETH'S CHOICE. 149 

Mistress Elizabeth, though besieged with in- 
vitations for the opening dance, walked smiling 
away to where a certain plowboy was standing. 

"The minuet, I believe, is Mr. Marion's," she 
said, adding in a low tone, " though he hath not 
asked for it." 

Marion's dress, less glittering than some, was 
yet well-chosen and becoming, and the pair, 
taking their places, made not an ill match for 
Kit and his partner. 

"So, Mistress Elizabeth," said Marion, in one 
of the pauses of the stately minuet, "you have 
lost England ! " 

"I have Juno's freedom," Betty returned. 

"But dearly bought!" he suggested, when, 
after a turn, they paused again. 

"Nay, Master Francis!" She courtesied to 
the music. " Look at me well. Master Francis! 
You see the happiest girl in the Carolinas." 

"And I, Mistress Elizabeth," he bent his 
powdered head to a slow, soft strain of the 
dance, "I," — he blushed and trembled, he who 
later trembled before neither Indian nor Redcoat, 
but his voice was steady, — "I am the proudest 
man in his majesty's colonies!" 

M. E. M. Davis. 



THE CATAMOUNT TAVERN. 

TN the year 187 1 one of the most notable 
* buildings connected with the early history of 
Vermont was burned in the village of Bennington. 

It was the famous Catamount Tavern House, 
a wooden edifice erected more than a hundred 
years before its day of doom by Capt. Stephen 
Fay, one of the most enterprising and public- 
spirited of the early settlers in the New Hamp- 
shire Grants, as Vermont was called before the 
Revolution. 

This edifice was built for a house of enter- 
tainment for travellers, and for the immigrants 
who fiocked into the region from New England. 

It was about forty feet square, two stories in 
height, with a large hall, called council-room, 
for the use of the people in public gatherings, 
law courts, dancing assemblies, and meetings of 
committees for consultation, public and private. 

Such meetings were frequent there during 
the later period of the famous quarrel of twenty- 
six years' duration between the authorities of 
New York and the settlers on the Grants. 

The controversy arose in this wise : By virtue 
of the charter granted to the Duke of York in 



THE CATAMOUNT TAVERN. 151 

1664, the province of New York claimed terri- 
torial jurisdiction eastward to the Connecticut 
River. Families from New Hampshire settled 
in the region between that river and Lake 
Champlain. In 1752 the Governor of New 
Hampshire began to issue grants to these and 
other settlers who came afterward. The New 
Yorkers perceived that the domain was filling 
with a sturdy, enterprising population, and 
asserted their legal right to the territory. 

New York had relinquished its claim to terri- 
tory so far eastward as the Connecticut River 
in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and New 
Hampshire urged its claim to have a western 
extent equal to that of the other two provinces, 
and continued to issue grants to settlers. 

The controversy grew warmer and warmer, 
and in 1764 the government of New York 
procured a royal decree giving it territorial 
jurisdiction to the Connecticut River. 

The issue of land-grants by New Hampshire 
now ceased, and the settlers acquiesced; but 
when the authorities of New York proclaimed 
that the land-titles of the immigrants on the 
Grants were void, and proceeded to dispossess 
the dwellers and dispose of their homes to 
speculators, stubborn resistance was manifested. 



152 



THE CATAMOUNT TAVERN. 



Sheriffs and their assistants who came to seize 
and sell the property of the settlers, which had 
been paid for and improved, met resolute armed 
defenders of their rights and were driven off. 




ABOVE A JEERING CROWD. 



Committees of safety assumed judicial powers 
and tried and punished intruders from without 
and offenders within. For several years the 
Grants bore the aspects of civil war, excepting 
that of actual carnage. 



THE CATAMOUNT TAVERN. 153 

It was while this quarrel was hotly raging that 
Captain Fay built his tavern. He was a zealous 
supporter of the oppressed settlers. In front of 
his house he erected a tall sign-post; and twenty- 
five feet from the ground he hung upon it a 
large sign, which was surmounted by the stuffed 
skin of a catamount or wildcat. Its fierce 
visage, showing its teeth, was turned toward 
New York, at which it grinned perpetual 
defiance. This gave the name to the tavern. 

Ethan Allen, the stalwart champion of right 
and justice, with a big heart and honest purpose, 
had come from Connecticut a few years before 
this tavern was built, and cast his lot among the 
settlers in the Grants. He espoused their cause, 
and soon became their trusted leader in sharp 
contests with the hated Yorkers. He trained 
a band of young setders and called them Green 
Mountain Boys. They became conspicuous in 
our nadonal history. 

When the Catamount Tavern was built, Allen 
made it his home and the headquarters of his 
administration as a virtual dictator during sdr- 
ring political periods. Out of the council-room 
went orders for the assembling of his forces, 
civil and military. Before him as chairman of a 
committee of safety offenders were brought, 



154 



THE C\TAMOUNT TAVERN. 



tried, condemned and received sentences from 
his lips, sometimes of banishment from the 
territory, sometimes of imprisonment, and fre- 
quently scourging with the "twigs of the wilder- 
ness." A prominent doctor who made himself 
obnoxious by persistent sympathy with the 

Yorkers suffered 
only the indignity 
of being suspend- 
ed in an armchair 
for two hours from 
the tavern sign, 
above a jeering 
crowd. 

When Try on 
was royal gover- 
nor of New York 
in 1777, he offered 
twenty pounds each for the arrest of Ethan 
Allen, Remember Baker and Robert Cochran, 
because of their "riotous conduct in opposing 
the measures of the New York government." 

These three "outlaws" and their friends had 
a jolly time of it at the Catamount Tavern over 
the matter, and out from the council-room went 
a counter proclamation, offering fifteen pounds 
for the arrest of James Duane and ten pounds 




THE COUNCIL-KOOM. 



THE CATAMOUNT TAVERN. 155 

for John Kemp, New York land speculators, 
styling them "the common disturbers of the 
public peace." The rewards were to be paid 
on the delivery of the culprits at "Landlord 
Fay's at Bennington." It was signed by Ethan 
Allen, Remember Baker and Robert Cochran. 

The breaking out of the war for independence 
suspended the intercolonial quarrel. Allen was 
appointed colonel of local forces. He was 
sojourning at the Catamount Tavern in the 
spring of 1775, when all New England was 
aroused by the tocsin sounded at Lexington. 
He had espoused the cause of the patriots, and 
his loyal Green Mountain Boys had increased 
in numbers to a large multitude. 

From the council-room of the Catamount, 
after a consultation with a committee, Allen 
issued an order on May 3d, mustering the 
Green Mountain Boys at Bennington to make 
an attempt to capture the British forts Ticon- 
deroga and Crown Point, on Lake Champlain. 
Allen led them on that expedition, which resulted 
in the surrender of the former stronghold to the 
Americans, on his demand in the name of the 
" Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." 

Benson J. Lossing. 



THE MIDDLE PLANTATION. 

WILLIAMSBURG, the oldest incorporated 
town in Virginia, was settled in 1632, and 
was known as "The Middle Plantation," being 
half-way between the James and York rivers. 
It became the capital of Virginia in 1678. 

Toward the close of the seventeenth century 
a college was established by a charter, by the 
joint sovereigns, William and Mary, with en- 
dowments of twenty thousand acres of land 
and the receipts from certain customs duties. 

At the beginning of the eighteenth century 
the colonial governor laid out a city there and 
gave it the title of Williamsburg. It lies on 
a ridge at the head springs of two creeks, one of 
which flows into the James and the other into 
the York River. Each is navigable to within 
a mile of the town. A capitol and a palace 
for the governor were built, and a church was 
erected, the finest then in America. 

Population increased rapidly. It became a 
market- town, the residence of opulent planters. 
*' Here," wrote Rev. Owen Jones, a Welsh ances- 
tor of Martha Washington, "dwell several good 



THE MIDDLE PLANTATION. 



157 



families. They live in the same neat manner, 
dress after the same modes, and behave them- 
selves exactly as the gentry of London; most 
families of note having a coach, chariot, or chaise." 




r WILLIAMSBURG. 



The city was the residence of the colonial 
viceregal court, and during the sessions of the 
legislature it became a theater of great social 
enjoyment and gaiety. To that court and society 
the pretty, bright and amiable Martha Dandridge, 
afterward Martha Washington, was introduced 
at the age of fifteen years. 

The transient visitors at the capital, especially 



158 THE MIDDLE PLANTATION. 

those who caused the periodical overflow at the 
annual sessions of the legislature, required a 
public house of entertainment. At about 1710, 
when Spotiswood was governor, a spacious inn 
was built, at his suggestion and with his aid. 

It was named in honor of the famous knight 
and courtier of Queen Elizabeth's reign, Sir 
Walter Raleigh, the Raleigh Tavern. It was 
constructed of wood, in the form of an L. Like 
nearly every other edifice in that little city, it stood 
alone, with gardens between it and its neighbors. 

The Raleigh Tavern was a story and a half 
high, the upper portion lighted by numerous dor- 
mer windows that pierced a sloping roof. Over 
the front porch was a leaden bust of Raleigh. 
In the portion of the building which extended 
back from the street was a large apartment 
called the Apollo room. It was lighted by six 
large windows, and was handsomely wainscoted. 
At the period of the Revolution, a large square 
lantern made of iron and glass, and furnished 
with candles, was suspended from the center of 
the ceiling, while at intervals round the sides of 
the room were several candelabra with small 
mirrors for reflections. 

The Apollo room was devoted to public 
gatherings of every kind. During the gay season 



THE MIDDLE PLANTATION. 159 

it was used as an assembly-room for dancing, 
and in it might be seen the most eminent repre- 
sentatives of titles, wealth and beauty of the 
colonial society of the Old Dominion, especially 
during the long administration of Governor Sir 
William Gooch (172 7- 1749). 

Then the viceregal court of Virginia was the 
most brilliant on the continent ; for much of the 
stately etiquette and conventional formality of 
the cavalier element still prevailed at the capital, 
and the great landholders vied with each other 
in their display of equipages, dress and retinues. 

When the Stamp Act and other oppressive 
measures were put in operation by the British 
ministry, the English-American colonists were 
aroused to persistent opposition, and the voices 
of Patrick Henry and other patriots were sound- 
ing an alarm in the legislative hall of the old 
Capitol near the Raleigh Tavern. 

Almost daily conferences were held in the 
Apollo room, at which measures were devised 
that, in a quiet way, often effected more salutary 
results than the most eloquent declamations. 

It was in that room that young Thomas 
Jefferson and two or three others prepared 
those counter - resolutions and addresses in 
opposition to those of the British Parliament, 



160 



THE MIDDLE PLANTATION. 



in the spring of 1769. They were promptly 
adopted by the Virginia House of Burgesses or 
Assembly, and produced a crisis. 

This act caused the royal governor to dissolve 
the Assembly. The members met the next day 
in the Apollo room, formed themselves into a 
Voluntary Convention, drew up articles of 




THE RALEIGH TAVERN. 



Opposition against the use of any merchandise 
imported from Great Britain, signed and rec- 
ommended them, and then repaired to their 
respective districts. 

They were all reelected except those who had 
declined to countenance the proceedings of the 
majority. This was incipient rebellion ; and 
similar acts in that room from time to time 
afterward made the Raleigh Tavern to Virginia, 
relatively, what Faneuil Hall is to Massachusetts. 



THE MIDDLE PLANTATION. 161 

Virginia kept pace with Massachusetts in the 
adoption of revolutionary measures. Her voice 
was always quick to express sympathy with that 
generous sister in her struggles against inflic- 
tions of British power during the hot ten years' 
quarrel between the Americans and the imperial 
government, before they came to blows. 

When, in the spring of 1773, the Virginia 
Assembly received copies of an address issued 
by the Assembly of Massachusetts, in which the 
sore grievances of that province were set forth, 
they promptly declared their concurrence 
with their New England brethren. Peyton 
Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry 
Lee and others urged immediate and bold action. 

A committee of correspondence was nominated 
the same evening, at a private conference held 
by the members at the Raleigh Tavern, when 
strong resolutions were drawn up. 

They were presented to the Assembly the 
next day and adopted, and the committee was 
appointed, with instructions to obtain trustworthy 
intelligence of all such acts of Parliament or the 
ministry as might affect the rights of the 
colonies. The committee was also authorized to 
open a correspondence and communication 
with similar committees of the other colonies. 



162 THE MIDDLE PLANTATION. 

The royal governor of Virginia at that time 
was Lord Dunmore, a Scotch nobleman. When 
he heard of the proceedings of the Assembly 
he hastened to their chamber. At that moment 
they were about to adopt other resolutions 
equally unsubmissive to royal rule, when the 
governor, with a loud voice, and haughty de- 
meanor, proclaimed the Assembly dissolved. 

The next day the committee of correspondence 
met at the Raleigh Tavern and despatched to 
the Speakers of the several provincial Assemblies 
a circular letter containing patriotic resolutions. 
Cordial responses came back. 

So, through documents sent out from the 
Raleigh Tavern, was formed the first sound link 
of the chain that united a confederacy which 
gave birth to a great nation. 

When, in the early summer of 1774, the British 
government declared its intention to punish the 
inhabitants of Boston for the destruction of tea 
in their harbor, by closing that port to commerce, 
the Virginia Assembly passed strong resolutions 
of condolence, and appointed a day to be 
observed as a fast. The offended governor, by 
verbal proclamation, dissolved the Assembly. 

Eighty-nine of the members, among whom 
was George Washington, met in the Apollo 



THE MIDDLE PLANTATION. 



163 



room on the following day, organized themselves 
into a Provincial Convention, prepared an address 
to their constituents, in which they declared that 
an attack upon one colony was an attack upon 
all, and recommended the assembling of repre- 
sentatives of all the colonies. 




THE APOLLO ROOM. 



This recommendation was immediately sent 
forth by couriers despatched from the Raleigh 
Tavern. It was heartily commended by all 
the colonies excepting Georgia. 

Twenty-five of the members of the convention 
remained at Williamsburg to participate in the 
religious observances of the appointed fast-day. 
They issued a circular to all the burgesses, or 
members of the Assembly, recommending a 
meeting of the whole body at the Raleigh 
Tavern, on the first day of August next ensuing. 



164 THE MIDDLE PLANTATION. 



Eighty of the members who formed the con- 
vention in the Raleigh were present at the 
appointed time. They adopted resolutions to 
import no more slaves, nor British goods, nor 
tea ; and resolved that if their grievances were 
not speedily redressed, to export no more tobacco. 

They recommended the cultivation of other 
articles of husbandry ; the improvement of the 
breed of sheep, and the multiplying of their 
numbers. On August 5th they chose delegates 
to represent Virginia in the Continental Congress 
which was to meet at Philadelphia on September 
5th. They then adjourned, after each had 
pledged himself to do all in his power to effect 
the results contemplated in their proceedings. 

During the war that soon broke out the 
Raleigh Tavern and its Apollo room were fre- 
quently the meeting-place of civil and military 
officials of Virginia when they were at the 
capital, and there the final arrangements for 
the Siege of Yorktown were made by Washing- 
ton and Rochambeau, in September, 1781. 

Benson J. Lossing. 



THE LITTLE REBEL 

DOROTHY was going to her first party. 
Dressed in her fine white musHn, with silk 
fan and red merino cloak, she stood listening to 
her father's earnest words. 

He was a Boston gentleman who from the 
first ranged himself with those who protested 
against the exactions of the British crown. 
His acquaintance was largely with the aristoc- 
racy of the country, who were mostly Tories. 

And now his daughter was going to the 
birthday party of her dear friend, the daughter 
of the king-loving Robert Jennifer, and he feared 
that she would be tempted to assent to the 
royal sentiments expressed among the gaieties 
of the evening. 

He tried not to be too serious in his last 
words of caution: ''Well, Dorothy, don't let 
these king-loving folk make you disloyal to the 
cause of liberty and justice." 

' ' Never fear, father. No king-loving folk could 
make me disloyal," answered Dorothy, laughing 
brightly, not thinking how soon the test would 
come, nor how severe would be the strain. 

The sounds of the harp and viol proclaimed 



166 THE LITTLE REBEL. 

that the dancers were in full swing when Dorothy 

alighted at the Jennifers' door, but a cordial 

greeting from her hostess, and a pleasant and 

admiring nod here and there from one and 

another of the guests, put her at ease, and very 

soon she found herself tripping the light or 

stately measures with the best of them. 

In those days dancing was not the only 

amusement that young people indulged in at an 

evening party. Frolicsome games were greatly 

the fashion, and after a contra-dance little Betty 

Jennifer proposed that they should play ''King 

George's Troops." It is a pretty game, with its 

procession that passes along under the arch of 

two of the company's clasped and lifted hands, 

these two singing : 

" Open the gates as high as the sky, 
To let King George's troops pass by." 

There is a forfeit to pay by those whom the 
keepers of the gate succeed in catching with a 
sudden downward swoop of the hands as they 
pass under, and great amusement ensues when 
some captive is set to performing some droll 
penance or ridiculous task. 

Dorothy had played the game hundreds of 
times, and was very expert in eluding the most 
wary of keepers. Her dexterity was soon 



THE LITTLE REBEL. 



167 



apparent to the people about her, especially to 
Carroll Jennifer and Jervis Langton, who were 
the gate-keepers on this occasion. 

At last a heedless misstep on the part of the 




TRIPPING THE STATELY MEASURES. 



one who preceded Dorothy brought an instant 
delay, of which the gate-keepers took advantage. 
Dorothy had seen the misstep, and bending 



168 THE LITTLE REBEL. 

low, Sprang forward with renewed celerity. But 
the sharpened wits of the gate-keepers made 
them more than a match for her, and swoop ! 
there she was, caught and held fast! 

There was a general shout of victory, then a 
general rushing forward to see this hard-won 
captive and know her forfeit-fate. 

'*Ah, my little soldier! " cried Carroll Jennifer, 
with a gay laugh. "You see that when King 
George's officers stand at the gate, they stand 
there to win. All his troops must obey his 
commanding officers." 

Suddenly across Dorothy's mind flashed her 
father's last words, and she wanted to cry out, 
"I'm not one of King George's loyal troops! 
I'm a rebel! " 

But the feeling of shyness came over her, and 
she thought, " How foolish for me to say a thing 
of that kind in the midst of a play like this ! " 

Somebody else, however, was not held back 
by this shyness, for a voice cried, "Ah! but 
Mistress Dorothy has been taught to flout at 
King George and his officers, and even though 
she be one of his soldiers, I dare say she is in 
secret a little rebel, who has been planning and 
plotting to escape you." 

Carroll Jennifer had just returned from a long 



THE LITTLE REBEL. 169 

visit abroad, and did not know about the loyalty 
of his family's friends. He saw that the pretty 
captive was blushing with a troubled distress, 
and he came to her rescue. Looking down with 
the sweetest of kind smiles on his winning face, 
he exclaimed, "Mistress Dorothy couldn't be a 
rebel in my father's house! " 

The bright color fled from Dorothy's cheeks 
and she felt for the moment like a little traitor 
for being where she was. Then Jervis Langton 
took up Carroll's words, and went on in such 
a glowing and eloquent fashion about keeping 
faith, and being true to one's old home, and 
the king being father of his subjects, that Dorothy 
was quite bewildered. 

She was made to feel that these king-loving 
folk had a high, enthusiastic sense of king and 
country, and what they owed to both. 

Carroll Jennifer, glancing at Dorothy's up- 
turned listening face, recalled his duty as host, 
and breaking in upon the talk, said smilingly: 

*' But the forfeit, Mistress Dorothy, let us see 
to that. Ah, by the king's realm, I have it! 
You shall repeat after me the renunciation of 
all rebellious thoughts, and swear from this 
night forth to be loyal to the king and his crown. 

"Now repeat after me: I renounce from this 



170 THE LITTLE REBEL. 



night forth," he paused, glancing at Dorothy 
with smiling invitation. 

Dorothy heard again her father, saying, 
'' Don't let these king-loving folk make you 
disloyal to the cause of liberty and justice." 

She looked up into the kind, admiring eyes 
that were bent upon her, and round the splendid 
room at the faces that were now full of pleasant 
looks for her, but she must not delay ; she must 
take her place where she belonged. With her 
color deepening, her voice faltering, she repeated, 
" ' I renounce from this night forth — ' " 

'' All seditious and rebellious thoughts — " 

'' 'All seditious and rebellious thoughts — ' " 

*' Against his most gracious majesty. King 
George the Third — " 

" 'Against — * " Dorothy paused, a mist passed 
before her eyes, a shudder of horror thrilled 
her; then with a sudden uplifting of her head, 
and a new emphasis to her voice, she cried : 

"Against, not his most gracious majesty, King 
George the Third, but his sorely tried and 
oppressed people, who are weighed down with 
the burden of his unjust taxes." 

" Dorothy, Dorothy, how dare you under 
Master Jennifer's loyal roof! Are you not 
ashamed?" cried out Judith Myles. 



THE LITTLE REBEL. 171 

Carroll Jennifer looked from one to another 
with an awakening- sense of the true situation. 

"Mistress Dorothy," he presently exclaimed, 
*' have these rebels and malcontents frightened 
you into this?" 

"No — no, I have only been frighted by 
my own poor spirit just now, into disloyalty to 
the cause of liberty and justice," she replied. 

''There is but one cause, and that is the 
crown's, and but one disloyalty, and that is to 
the king ! " cried Jervis Langton. 

The clamor of voices arose on every hand. 
It was a storm of Tory talk — vehement protest 
and assertion and declaration. In the center of 
it stood Dorothy. She had ceased turning red 
and white. With her head slightly bent, her 
arms drooping and her hands clasped together, 
she looked like a wind-blown lily, bruised and 
beaten, but not overthrown. 

All at once Carroll Jennifer seemed to realize 
Dorothy's defenseless position. He could not 
defend her avowed principles, but she was his 
guest, and he was a gentleman ; so he put up 
his hand with a, " Come, come, we have had 
enough of this discussion to-night." A nod to 
the musicians, and the strains of the harp and 
violin broke in upon the clamor of tongues. 



172 THE LITTLE REBEL. 

At another signal a door was thrown open, 
and beyond could be seen a bountifully spread 
supper-table, gay with lights, and the shine of 
silver and glass. Young Mr. Jennifer bowed 
low, as was the fashion of the time, before 
Dorothy, with his finest manners, and said, with 
airy grace: ''Will my enemy consent to let 
a wicked Tory serve her ? " 

Dorothy shrank back with so dismayed a face 
that both Carroll and his sister Cynthia felt 
touched with pity. 

"We have been making too much of this," 
said Cynthia, in an undertone to her brother. 
" She is a child, after all, who has been showing 
off a little, and does not know the full meaning 
of what she has said." 

"No, no," cried Dorothy, "I did not say what 
I did to show off! I spoke because I wanted to 
be true and honest. I was ashamed at first of — 
of my friends — of our cause — I was afraid to 
speak at first — and then, I was ashamed of my 
cowardice. Oh, I know what I say! You must 
not take me for what I am not ! I am a litde 
rebel to the king's cause. I believe in the 
people's rights, and not in the crown's, and 
I ought not to have come here, I ought not 
to have come ! " 



THE LITTLE REBEL. 173 

The clear voice faltered and fell, and the next 
moment poor Dorothy burst into tears. 

Then it was that a new voice was heard, a 
deeper, older voice. It was low-toned, yet very 
distinct, and there was an odd thrill, a sort of 
quiver of emotion to it, as it said: 

'' Come, Mistress Dorothy, rebel or no rebel, 
you have shown a courage that we may all doH 
our hats to. I only hope that every king's 
soldier may prove his truth and loyalty to the 
king's cause as bravely if he should be beset by 
temptation. And you, my fine Tories," turning 
to the young men of the company, " I hope that 
you will always be able to give your meed of 
admiration and respect to such kind of courage, 
wherever you find it. 

"Come, Mistress Dorothy, let us go and be 
served with some of these dainties that are pre- 
pared for us ; and we will see if a Tory sillibub 
will not take away the taste of those tears. You 
are a litde rebel and mine enemy, for I am one 
of the king's stanchest defenders and hope to 
conquer all rebels, but I am proud to have such 
a rebel for my guest to-night, I assure you," 
and Mr. Jennifer bent down his powdered head 
in a fine obeisance as he offered Dorothy his arm. 

Nora Perry. 



POLLY CALLENDAR. 

PREVIOUS to the outbreak of the Revolution 
^ the Callendars were Royalists, and General 
Gage's young British officers, one of whom was 
related to the Callendars, frequently rode out 
from Boston to call at the hospitable country 
house. It was Polly Callendar whom they went 
to see ; her beauty and vivacious wit were the 
theme of many toasts. And up to the evening 
of this story Polly was as disdainful of the 
minutemen as was her mother. 

At about noon of that day Madam Callendar 
was summoned to the bedside of Elizabeth 
Ballard, a kinswoman living near Natick. She 
had left her brick oven full of the week's baking, 
and had set a large brass kettle, filled with 
redwood dye, on the crane in the great fireplace. 

Numerous skeins and hanks of woolen yarn, 
spun during the previous winter, were immersed 
in it, and the last warning from Polly's mother 
was: "Redwood must never be hurried, Polly. 
Stir often, lass. Press the hanks down hard 
with your clothes-stick, and then drop in a little 
of this powdered alum to set the scarlet." 




POLLY CALLENDAR. 175 

So through the long, foggy afternoon it was 
Polly Callendar's homely task to watch the oven 
and tend the scarlet kettle. But with evening 
came an unexpected diversion. A knock was 
heard at the outer door; and when old 'Rastus, 
the negro servant, had 
opened it, a tall young 
man, in provincial garb, 
inquired how far it was 

TV 1 1 y^J&^l^^^^ HOW FAR ? 

to Boston and what 
was the road. Learning that the distance was 
still considerable, he entreated hospitality, saying 
that having ridden since dawn, he was both 
tired and wet. Polly at first demurred, but in 
the end, persuaded somewhat by his respectful 
manners and handsome face, she sent 'Rastus 
to stable the horse. 

She spread a plentiful supper before the way- 
farer ; and then, because his appearance pleased 
her, she brewed for him some of her mother's 
cherished tea, and poured it into one of the 
delicate china teacups that had come from 
England. 

But the young man ate in silence, notwith- 
standing these attentions. Truth to say, he was 
ill at ease. He was on his way to join the 
minutemen, and he was bringing with him a 



176 POLLY CALLENDAR. 

hundred pounds that had been contributed by 
the patriot committee of his native town. He 
feared that in some way the redcoats had been 
given a hint of his mission. Mounted men had 
stared hard at him that day, and he had thought 
it wise to avoid a troop patrolling the roads. 
And now, despite the quality of his supper, he 
paused to listen anxiously w^henever horses' 
hoofs or voices were heard without. Polly, 
noticing his uneasiness and marking his blue, 
colonial homespun, drew her own inferences. 

Of a sudden the young man took note of the 
kettle and its scarlet contents. ''That is a bright 
dye which you have there, mistress," he re- 
marked. ''Are you fond of so high a color?" 

"In good truth, sir, and why not?" replied 
Polly. " Have you fault to find with it?" 

" I would be a churl if I did," answered the 
guest, gallantly, "since it is scarcely more pink 
than the cheeks of my fair hostess. The red- 
coats must feel flattered at your preference." 

"And is it not the hue that all loyal subjects 
should prefer ? " queried Polly, demurely. 

"Nay, but I will not gainsay you, mistress," 
replied the young man. "And yet it is a color 
soon to fade under our American sun." 

"But not from the hearts of the king's loyal 



POLLY CALLENDAR. 177 

subjects," retorted Polly. "This is no rebel 
household, sir. My kinsmen, who were here 
but yesterday, wear the scarlet and are the 
king's loyal servants." And saying this she 
observed that her guest winced. 

" Beyond doubt he is one of the patriots," 
she thought. ''But such a handsome youth! 
Moreover, he is most courteous, and his ways 
are more gentle than those of Cousin Charles." 

As for the stranger, his heart sank afresh. 
"I will pay for my supper and get on," he 
thought. "I shall be safer abroad in the dark- 
ness than here." As he rose to take leave the 
tramp of horses was again heard ; and this time 
they pulled up before the house door. 

"My kinsmen, it is very like," said Polly, 
smiling. " They wear sharp swords, sir." 
Then, as she noted the hunted look which the 
young man cast about the room, her manner 
changed. " Is it that you would not like to 
meet them, sir?" she asked, in a low tone. 

As she spoke there came an imperative rap at 
the door, and a cry of, "Open in the king's name! " 

"For heaven's sake show me a way out!" 
cried the stranger. "It is less that I fear their 
swords, but I am on a mission of importance." 

"Open, madam! Open, Polly! It is I, 



178 POLLY CALLENDAR. 



your cousin Charles; and they say there is a 
rascally rebel here ! " cried the voice outside. 
" But we have the house surrounded." 

Polly had turned toward a rear door, but 
hearing these last words, darted to the center of 
the room again. For an instant she was at a 
loss. Then her eyes fell on the door of her 
mother's storeroom, a closet beside the large 
chimney, which it was Madam Callendar's 
practice to keep locked; but in the haste of 
departing, she had forgotten to take the key. 

"Here, sir," Polly whispered. "Quick, be 
quick! " and she unlocked the door, half-pushed 
the man within, and hastily turning the key again, 
put it in her pocket. 

" Open ! " cried the voices outside. " Open in 
the king's name!" and the raps were repeated. 

"Coming, good sirs, coming!" cried Polly. 
Then her eye fell on the young patriot's great- 
coat, lying across a back of the chair. If seen, 
that would betray all. She snatched it up and 
plunged it into the great kettle of scarlet dye. 
Then, throwing the door open and courtesying 
low, as was the custom of those days, she cried, 
" Good evening. Cousin Charles ! Welcome, 
good gentlemen ; my mother has gone to 
Natick; nevertheless, you are right welcome." 



POLLY CALLENDAR. 179 

"Aye!" grumbled the young ofificer. "After 
my knuckles are skinned with knocking. But 
prithee, Polly, have you seen naught of this 
insolent knave? " 

" Indeed, Cousin Charles, this is but a sorry 
jest ! " exclaimed Polly Callendar. " Since when 
has my family been aught but loyal to the king ? " 

'' True," assented the Briton. " Yet the rascal 
may be lurking about." 

''Enter, then, and see for yourselves!" cried 
Polly. " My mother would earnestly desire you 
to purge her house of rebels ! " 

They came noisily in, peered into nooks and 
corners, and presently ascended to the attic. 

"Do not forget the cellar ! " cried Polly, gaily, 
opening the door and handing her cousin a 
lighted candle. "Perchance the knave is 
hiding in some bin or box." 

The quest there proved as fruitless as in the 
chambers ; but one of the party noted the closed 
door by the chimney and tried it. "Why 
locked ? " he exclaimed. "The key, fair mistress ! " 

" For that you will do well to ask my mother," 
replied Polly, carelessly. "The closet is my 
mother's keeping-room; and it is ever her 
custom to carry the key in her pocket." 

"True," remarked her cousin, who knew the 



180 POLLY CALLENDAR. 

ways of the household. ''The rogue will hardly 
have got into madam's keeping-room. Doubtless 
he has slipped away." 

"If ever he were here!" flashed back Polly. 
'' But beyond doubt, good cousin and gentlemen, 
you must be hungry after your hard ride. Will 
you not partake of our cheer?" 

Nothing loath, the young redcoats gathered 
about the supper-table, where for an hour or 
more Polly maintained the reputation of the 
house for loyalty and good entertainment. In 
truth, the soldiers were slow to depart, and 
would hardly have gone by nine o'clock had not 
Polly adroitly reminded her kinsman that the 
knave they were pursuing would surely get 
clear away. Thereupon they took leave and 
rode off with much laughter. 

But fearful lest they might return, Polly waited 
long, listening, and not until old 'Rastus had 
come in to bar the outer door for the night and 
close the shutters, would she release her prisoner. 

"Come forth, sir!" she at last commanded, 
with assumed austerity. "What have we here? 
A rebel, I fear me, from all I am told." 

" But one profoundly grateful to his preserver," 
replied the young man ; and to old 'Rastus's great 
astonishment, he took Mistress Polly's hand and 



POLLY CALLENDAR. 



181 



gallantly kissed the tips of her fingers, albeit 
they were tinged with scarlet from her dye. 

'* Methinks, sir, it but ill becomes me to accept 
such thanks from one who confesses his dis- 
loyalty to King George," Polly replied, still with 
seeming severity, 
" and whose 
name I do not 
even know. But 
since you are 
here, prithee take 
seat before the 
fire. For of ne- 
cessity, sir, I have 
made a good 
Royalist of you, 
so far as your 
greatcoat covers 
you. See! " And 
with the clothes- 
stick she lifted it 
out of the kettle. 
'' Not Cousin Charles's own is a brighter scarlet ! " 

The stranger burst into a hearty laugh. " Good 
faith, I had not thought to wear a scarlet coat ! " 

"Yet, sir, it may stand you in good stead, as 
you ride into Boston to-morrow," replied Polly. 




DON IT, SIR. 



182 POLLY CALLENDAR. 



''And now let us powder a little alum in the 
mortar to set the hue. I would not have thy 
loyalty wash out, sir, in the first shower that 
falls on you." 

As a consequence, one young patriot found 
himself powdering alum to dye his own coat 
scarlet. And midnight came and passed, as he 
and Polly sat in front of the great brass kettle, 
and old 'Rastus nodded in the corner. 

Beyond doubt they became better acquainted 
in this time ; and Polly certainly learned the 
stranger's name, for as the tall old clock in the 
corner struck one, she said, "It is now time to 
wring thy coat, John Fenderson." 

When wrung it had still to be dried ; and Polly 
put it for an hour into the warm brick oven. 

Somewhat puckered from the dye, the garment 
still required pressing out ; and to heat an iron 
and accomplish this occupied yet another hour. 
The old clock struck three. 

''Truly, John Fenderson, making a king's 
man of thee has been a long task ! " exclaimed 
Polly, as at last she held up the scarlet coat for 
inspection. "Don it, sir! I would even desire 
to mark the effect." And what John Fenderson 
would not have done at the king's command, he 
appears now to have done without hesitation at 



POLLY CALLENDAR. 183 

Polly Callendar's request. For between these 
two young people the grievous differences of 
Tory and Patriot had already been dispelled. 

*'Good luck, John Fenderson, in thy brave 
coat," said Polly at four o'clock, as the young 
man took leave, after she had given him break- 
fast. " May the color hold — but if it fades! " 

" I shall come back to you," said John. 

"Ah, but it will grieve me when I hear that 
thou art to be hanged for a rebel ! " cried Polly. 

'' Nay, Mistress Polly, I should have but to 
send for thee to teach me how to dye ! " replied 
John Fenderson. 

So he rode away, and had cause to be thank- 
ful for the disguise the coat offered him ; for 
while riding through Newton he was hailed by 
three redcoats, two of whom raised their mus- 
kets; but the third held them back, saying, 
" Nay, by his coat he must be one of our men." 

There is much reason to believe that Mistress 
Polly's loyalty to King George was ever after- 
ward open to question. At any rate, the records 
of John Fenderson's native town show that he 
married in 1779, and that the bride's name was 
Polly Callendar. 

Margaret Fenderson. 



WARREN'S LAST SPEECH. 

On September 30, 1768, a British fleet and 
army entered Boston harbor for the pur- 
pose of enforcing the King of England's authority. 
This act was the king's appeal to arms, and the 
colonies so regarded and accepted it. 

From that day there was war. It was a kind 
of war only possible to men capable of awaiting 
their time, habituated to self-control, accustomed 
to think before acting, and to act according to 
their thought. 

The selectmen of Boston refused to provide 
quarters for the soldiers, and they were the 
more unwilling, as there was room for them in 
the castle on an island in the harbor. Notwith- 
standing this refusal, at noon on October ist, a 
cold day for the season, the English troops, 
armed and equipped for conflict, each man carry- 
ing sixteen ball charges, were rowed in great 
state to the shore, from which they marched to 
the Common, with drums, fifes and flags. 

One of the regiments encamped there for the 
night. But there were no tents for the other, 
and their commander asked the selectmen to 
provide a temporary shelter for the men. 



WARREN'S LAST SPEECH. 



185 



The evening was colder than the day, and 
the soldiers, debilitated from their voyage, were 
evidently suffering from it. The people took 
pity on them, and the selectmen, after some 
delay, consented, for humanity's sake alone, to 
let them remain for the night in Faneuil Hall. 

At first the boys of Boston were much pleased 
to view the daily drills and parades of the 
soldiers ; which, to many an observant country- 
man who came to town with produce, were a 




ROWED IN GREAT STATE TO THE SHORE. 



valuable object-lesson in the art of war. The 
presence in Boston for seven years of regiments 
of regular troops, exercising and camping, famil- 
iarized great numbers of the future soldiers of 
the Revolution with the details of military 



186 WARREN'S LAST SPEECH. 

discipline. But during the whole period there 
never ceased to be hostility and contention 
between the troops and the people. 

These soldiers were, after all, human beings. 
Finding themselves objects of general contempt 
and derision, in a land which furnished remote 
and abundant hiding-places, they began to 
desert in alarming numbers. Three or four of 
them disappeared each day. During the first 
two weeks forty deserted, and not a man in the 
city appeared willing to betray them. 

The feeling between the troops and the people 
daily grew more bitter. The royal government 
was tactless and insolent. The press of the 
town retorted with stinging satire. Passers on 
the street were rudely jostled by the soldiers. 
Bayonets were occasionally drawn and used. 

On March 5, 1770, when the British soldiers 
had been in Boston seventeen months, occurred 
the bloody affair which has ever since been 
called the Boston Massacre. A file of the 
troops, exasperated by the taunts, the snowballs 
and menacing cries of a great crowd of men and 
boys, opened fire upon them, killing three, 
mortally wounding two, and injuring seven 
others, nearly all of whom were innocent spec- 
tators of the scene. 



WARREN'S LAST SPEECH. 



187 



The wrath of the people, as the news of this 
affair spread through the town and the adjacent 
counties, was something akin to frenzy; but 
even in that critical hour the leaders of the 
people retained their self-command, and knew 

how to behave with 
dignity, wisdom and 
rectitude. They pro- 
vided a vent for the 
passion of the crisis in 
a singularly impressive 
public funeral of the 
victims, in which the 
whole mass of the 
patriotic citizens took 
part, marching six 
abreast to the grave. 
An immense public meeting was held. Samuel 
Adams conveyed to the royal government its 
respectful and most reasonable request for the 
Immediate removal of the troops from the town. 
One regiment had already gone. He demanded 
the instant removal of every man who wore the 
king's uniform. 

"The troops," replied the governor, "are not 
subject to my authority. I have no power to 
remove them." 




THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 



188 



WARREN'S LAST SPEECH. 



*' If," said Adams, '' you have power to remove 
one regiment, you have power to remove both. 
It is at your peril if you refuse. The meeting 
is composed of three thousajid people. They 
are become impatient. A thousand men are 
already arrived from the neighborhood, and the 
whole country is in motion. 
Night is approaching. An im- 
mediate answer is expected, 
and a direct answer is de- 
manded." 

The government yielded. 
The troops were removed, and 
the Revolution was postponed 
for five years. But every 
year, on the anniversary of the 
massacre, memorial services 
were held of the most im- 
pressive character, and an 
oration was delivered by a 
distinguished member of the 
DR. JOSEPH WARREN. popukr party. 

These celebrations increased in Interest and 
in fervency every year until 1775, when Dr. 
Joseph Warren, for the second time, was the 
orator of the day. It was feared that the armed 
conflict could not be long delayed, and Doctor 




WARREN'S LAST SPEECH. 189 

Warren asked the privilege of delivering the 
oration. He wished the opportunity to declare 
once more that the people of America had fully 
resolved to fight rather than submit to lawless 
rule. He desired to impress it upon the English 
people that the unexampled patience which the 
men of New England had shown had in it no 
alloy of cowardice. He sought the duty also 
because there was thought to be danger in the 
performance of it. 

Some of the British officers had agreed to 
attend the Old South Church, where the meeting 
was to be held, and if anything offensive was said, 
they were to make an assault upon the speaker 
and break up the meeting. The story has long 
been current that a young ensign had agreed to 
give the signal by throwing an Ggg at the orator. 
But on his way to church the gallant youth had a 
fall. The egg was broken, his knee was put out 
of joint, and he was ignominiously carried home. 

The meeting was appointed for half past 
eleven, and long before that hour the church 
was crowded. The pulpit, as usual on these 
occasions, was draped in black. In the pulpit 
were several of the well-known and trusted 
leaders, Samuel Adams and John Hancock 
among the rest. 



190 WARREN'S LAST SPEECH. 

Samuel Adams, who presided, observing a 
number of British officers standing in the aisles, 
and being resolved to deprive them of all pretext 
for disorder, requested the occupants of the 
front pews to leave them, which they did. He 
then politely invited the officers to take the 
vacant places. About forty of them came for- 
ward, some of whom took seats in the pews, 
and the rest sat upon the pulpit stairs. 

After quiet was restored, there was profound 
silence in the assembly ; so that the noise of the 
doctor's chaise driving up and stopping at an 
apothecary's shop opposite the church was heard 
within. 

The orator descended from this vehicle and 
entered the shop, followed by his servant carry- 
ing a bundle, which contained the gown of black 
silk in which public speakers at that day fre- 
quently arrayed themselves. 

There was such a crowd about the door that 
he went to the rear of the building, where, 
ascending by a ladder, he entered through a 
window behind the pulpit. The silence was 
broken only when he came to the front and 
began his oration with the well-known words, 
"My ever-honored fellow citizens." 

The speech was pathetic and forcible in a 



WARREN'S LAST SPEECH. 



191 



high degree. The orator laid down the principle 
that freedom is the natural right of every man, 
and that no man can be justly deprived of the 
fruits of his toil except by his own consent, 
given by himself or 
by his legal repre- 
sentatives. He 
stated modestly and 
plainly the resolve of 
America to maintain 
this right even at 
the cost of war. 

The orator spoke 
of the tender and 
enthusiastic affection 
which the colonists 
had formerly felt for 
the mother country. 
So far from envying 
the wealth and great- 




EVEN AT THE COST OF WAR. 



ness of Great Britain, 
the people of the colonies, he said, exulted in 
them, and their delight was to relate to their 
children the glorious deeds which had been 
done by Englishmen in former ages. Nothing 
was so astonishing to the people of America as 
that it should be '' the arms of George, our 



192 WARREN'S LAST SPEECH. 

rightful king, that had been employed to shed 
the blood which freely would have Howed at his 
command when justice or honor of the crown 
had called his subjects to the field." But even 
against Britain the people of America would 
defend the natural rights of man! 

The British officers behaved tolerably well 
during the delivery of this oration, but when the 
usual motion was made to appoint an orator for 
the following year they began to hiss. This 
irritated the assembly, and for a time there was 
much confusion. Order was at length restored, 
however, and the business of the meeting was 
concluded. 

There was no occasion for an orator the next 
year. Forty-four days after this meeting Gen- 
eral Gage spared the people of Boston the 
responsibility of "precipitating a crisis" by order- 
ing a movement of troops which issued in the 
Battle of Lexington. 

James Parton. 



THE YOUTH'S COMPANION 



Is an illustrated Family Paper. It is published 
weekly. Its illustrations are by the best artists. 

Its stories represent real life and aim to interest 
readers of all ages. They are stimulating, healthful 
and helpful, but never sensational. Their great num- 
ber and variety, together with their marked excellence, 
give The Companion acknowledged pre-eminence among 
literary publications. 

Its editorials upon current topics give facts that are 
not ordinarily found in other papers, and that it is a 
pleasure and a benefit to know. 

Its biographical and historical articles are very valu- 
able to those who appreciate the elements of progress. 
Successful men and women in many branches of busi- 
ness and professional life give their experiences to the 
readers of The Companion. 

Its miscellaneous articles are read by young and old 
with equal eagerness. Its letters of travel present the 
picturesque features of foreign life. Its articles on 
health and etiquette are of real practical value. 

The paper aims both to entertain and to instruct. It 
seeks to become a family friend, bringing help and 
cheer to every member of the household, and to in- 
fluence directly the conduct and issues of daily life. 



PERRY MASON COMPANY, Publishers, 
201 Columbus Avenue. BOSTON, MASS. 



THE YOUTH'S COMPANION 
IN EDUCATION. 



The special character of The Youth's Companion 
admirably adapts it for use in Schools and Academies, 
as a Supplementary Reader and as the Instructors' 
Help in furnishing the latest information in Science, 
Art and the Current History of the World. 

In every department of education, from the Kinder- 
garten to the College, the wise instructor is constantly 
seeking illustrations to brighten and vivify the topics 
he is teaching. By its great variety of short articles, 
all carefully verified. The Companion peculiarly serves 
the educator. 

It gives practical aid in ethics and social customs 
concerning the happiness of the home, and acquaints 
its readers with the best living writers. It supplies 
fresh reading-matter every week, and awakens ambition 
by presenting high and healthy ideals. 

Its use in schools has been so extensive that the 
publishers make a Special School Rate of three cents 
a copy for any number of papers sent to one address 
for any length of time. The average amount of reading 
thus given each week for three cents equals the con- 
tents of an ordinary book of 175 pages. 

Educators who wish choice Selections from The 
Companion, bound in convenient and permanent form, 
will be pleased with the books named on the following 
pages. 



THE COMPANION SERIES, 



UNDER THE CROTVN : 

Stories and Articles descriptive of Early American 
History. Containing Nos. 34, 35 and 36. 

OUR NATIONAL GOVERNMENT: 

The Executive, Legislative and Judicial Divisions. Con- 
taining Nos. 27, 28 and 29. 

OUR COUNTRY EAST: 

The Earliest Settled Sections of the United States. 
Containing Nos. 14, 15, 16 and 17. 

OUR COUNTRY "WEST : 

America West of the Mississippi River, including 
Alaska. Containing Nos. 10, 11, 12 and 13. 

GREATER AMERICA: 

Porto Rico, Philippines, Hawaii, Samoa and Guam. 
Containing Nos. 21, 22 and 23. 

BY LAND AND SEA: 

Travel in Europe, Asia and the Tropics of America. 

Containing Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5. 

TALKS ABOUT ANIMALS: 

Birds, Insects, Wild Animals and Fishes. Containing 
Nos. 6, 7, 8 and 9. 

PURPOSE AND SUCCESS: 

Stories of Bright Achievement. Containing Nos. i, 18, 
19 and 20. 

DARING DEEDS: 

Stories of Courage, Heroism and Faithfulness. Con- 
taining Nos. 24, 25 and 26. 

HEROIC ADVENTURES: 

Stories of Brave Deeds in Face of Danger. Containing 

Nos. 30, 31 and 32. 
Boil ad in Strong Liaea. Illustrated. Price SO cents each. 



The Companion Classics: 

Arthur Henry Hallam, by Hon. William Ewart Gladstone. 

A Boy Sixty Years Ago, by Hon. George F. Hoar. 
Famous Americans, by Hon. Justin McCarthy. 

Recollections of Gladstone, by Rt. Hon. James Bryce. 
Paper Covers. Price 10 cents each. 



THE COMPANION LffiRARY. 



Selections from The Youth's Cotnpaaioa, 64 pages each, 
with maay pictures, bound in stiff paper covers. 

1 . Stories of Purpose : Bravery, Tact and Fidelity. 

2. Glimpses of Europe : Travel and Description. 
3. The American Tropics : Mexico to the Equator. 

4. SIcetciies of the Orient : Scenes in Asia. 
5. Old Ocean : Winds, Currents and Perils. 
6. Life in the Sea : Fish and Fishing. 
7. Bits of Bird Life : Habits, Nests and Eggs. 

8. Our Little Neighbors : Insects, Small Animals. 
9. At Home in the Forest : Wild Animals. 

10. In Alaska: Animals and Resources. 
11. Among the Rockies : Scenery and Travel. 

12. In the Southwest : Semi-Tropical Regions. 
13. On the Plains : Pioneers and Ranchmen. 

14. The Great Lake Country : A Land of Progress. 
IS. On the Gulf: The States, Florida to Texas. 

16. Along the Atlantic : New York to Georgia. 
17. In New England : The Home of the Puritans. 

18. Stories of Success : Skill, Courage, Perseverance. 
19. Stories of Kindness : Examples for Rich and Poor. 
20. Student Stories: Life in School and College. 
21. In Porto Rico: The People, Customs, Progress. 

22. In the Philippines : Possession and Experiences. 
23. Mid=>Ocean America : Hawaii, Samoa, Pacific Islands. 

24. Bravest Deeds: Stories of Heroism. 
25. Sheer Pluck : Facing Danger with a Purpose. 

26. Fearless in Duty : Acts of Courage. 
27. Our President : Executive Life and Duties. 

28. Our National Senate : Routine of Legislation. 
29. Our Congressmen : Responsibilities of Lawmakers. 

30. Heroes of History : True Stories of Bravery. 
31. Saved by Stratagem : Stories of Adroit Manceuver. 

32. The Brink of Peril : Heroic Escapes from Danger. 
33. Children's Festivals: What Little Folks Can Do. 
34. The First Comers: Early American History. 
35. In Colonial Days : Struggles of Early Settlers. 
36. The Colonies Alert : Gaining Confidence. 
Price 10 cents each, post-paid. 

PERRY MASON COMPANY, Publishers, 
201 Columbus Avenue. BOSTON, MASS. 



liiii 



UBRARY OF CONGRESS 




011696 875 7 



lli|li|,,„ 



"liiiiiiiii 

5 1 



mmm 



ihiijjiillil I I 



111 i 



